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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26173828">Free Like a Broken Heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/notapartytrick/pseuds/notapartytrick'>notapartytrick</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shawshank Redemption - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>1950s Slang, Adult Peter Parker, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Peter Parker, BAMF Tony Stark, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, M/M, Murder, POV Tony Stark, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Break, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Poker, Precious Peter Parker, Prison, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Swearing, The Shawshank Redemption - Freeform, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tough Peter Parker, Tough Tony Stark, i promise he does eventually you just gotta wait</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:55:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>48,932</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26173828</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/notapartytrick/pseuds/notapartytrick</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony sat before the parole committee and spouted the same old bullshit he’d been spouting for sixteen years. It was pointless; Stane was going to keep him in the Raft until he breathed his last, whatever he said to the panel. Most likely everyone in that room had been paid off.<br/>It depressed Tony to think of that, and it was all inevitable anyway, so he sat back and enjoyed the quiet of the room until it was punctuated by the thump of a stamp.<br/>REJECTED.</p><p>When Tony first laid eyes on Peter Parker, he was forty-five, the kid was eighteen, and Tony bet two packs of cigarettes on him breaking down that very night.<br/>“Look at him. Still gangly. He’ll drop like a fly.”<br/>Maybe it wasn’t nice. But it was just what happened. You might as well have bet on it.<br/>---<br/>It's 1952. Tony Stark is 16 years into a life sentence at the Raft when he meets Peter Parker, a new arrival who changes things at the prison for good with his unbridled, enchanting capacity for hope in a place full of hopelessness.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Parker &amp; Peter Parker, Clint Barton &amp; Peter Parker, James "Bucky" Barnes &amp; Peter Parker, James "Rhodey" Rhodes &amp; Tony Stark, Michelle Jones &amp; Peter Parker, Obadiah Stane &amp; Tony Stark, Peter Parker &amp; Adrian Toomes, Peter Parker &amp; Original Character(s), Peter Parker &amp; Steve Rogers, Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Original Character(s), Tony Stark &amp; Original Character(s), Tony Stark/Original Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>463</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>370</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Irondad Creators Awards 2021 - Nominations</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here it finally is!!<br/>Well, I say finally but I literally began thinking of this idea just about two weeks ago and I'm already posting it lmao<br/>I was being driven around the coastline of Ireland and literally had this idea pop into my head unbidden, just "wouldn't a Shawshank redemption AU be cool???" and I went with it and it's taken over my life slightly but whatever :)))<br/>I hope y'all enjoy this one. It's a major departure from my usual more artistic and lengthy style for a very curt, gritty, sweary narrative voice. For those of you who have read Cherry, I used its narrative style as a reference for this fic! In terms of the plot, it'll feature some moments that will parallel the movie and some beats that will stick vaguely by the movie's plot but it also diverges at points, sometimes a little, sometimes greatly!!<br/>The title is also the title of a song by Birdtalker - I would definitely recommend giving them a listen, I love their music!<br/>See the collage I made for this fic on tumblr: https://notaparty-trick.tumblr.com/post/627782030244167680/free-like-a-broken-heart<br/>Throughout this whole work, there will be swearing and rough language, mentions of smoking, drinking, gambling, and a few sexual references. If these aren't you're cup of tea, you should maybe give this one a miss!</p><p>Trigger warning for Chapter 1: physical abuse</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
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</p><p>To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.</p><p>
  <em> --Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don’t you think so?</p><p>
  <em> --Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>
  <em> May 1952 </em>
</p><p>Tony sat before the parole committee and spouted the same old bullshit he’d been spouting for sixteen years. <em> I feel that I have been fully rehabilitated. I’ve learned my lesson, that’s for sure. I’m a changed man. </em>All that phony shit. It was pointless; Stane was going to keep him in the Raft until he breathed his last, whatever the fuck he said to the panel. Most likely everyone in that room had been paid off.</p><p>It depressed Tony to think of that, and it was all inevitable anyway, so he sat back and enjoyed the quiet of the room until it was punctuated by the thump of a stamp.</p><p>REJECTED.</p><p> </p><p>Tony was in the Raft for double murder. <em> Double murder </em>might have made him sound tough, but he’d just fucked with his wife Faith’s car brakes. Faith had been a real slut. Tony wished he didn’t have to say that, but it was true. She permed her hair and hiked up her skirt and got to pouting and murmuring when Tony broached the topic of where she’d been at night. It was funny, actually, that she was called Faith. Funny, too, that she hardly even tried to hide that she was fucking around from Tony. As if he’d just take it.</p><p>He’d loved that goddamn woman. He really had. But it had all gone to shit, and Tony couldn’t bear to see the mess any more.</p><p>So he’d fucked with Faith’s car brakes. And that went even worse than he’d intended, because in the autopsy they found an unborn kid. </p><p>Was it his? God only knows.</p><p>A <em> kid. </em></p><p>The Raft was notorious in the state of Maine for being the jail where all the tough sons of bitches went, the real hardened criminals, which Tony was just thrilled to hear when he was admitted. </p><p>The Raft was formidable. It was also ugly as hell: scatterings of blocky buildings, some red-brick, some grey, surrounding the courtyard, a plain of bare dirt where he and Rhodey and maybe Steve and Bucky would blow off steam under a hellish sun. In those days, not much happened to lift them out of the monotony of prison, so they’d play poker when they had the will to do so, chainsmoke when they didn’t. Tony smuggled them in what they wanted if he could and they’d pay him in cigarettes. It could have been worse.</p><p>On the other hand, Tony could say that he was about going crazy in there. In the cafeteria teeming with crooks. In the courtyard, tossing a baseball back and forth, back and forth. Behind the bars of his cell that rolled inexorably closed every night.</p><p>Tony deserved it, he figured. Even if not for killing Faith, for killing that kid.</p><p> </p><p>The alarm started ringing. It was the alarm that sounded when new fish were brought in. This was a big deal. There was a lot of shit people liked to do to the new fish when they were admitted, a lot of shit that used to turn Tony’s stomach but he was pretty much acclimatised to now. He sat back and watched it most of the time.</p><p>Today was no different. Tony joined the horde of men rattling at the chain-link fence then tracked backwards to the ledge where he and Rhodey and Steve and Bucky would always stand. In came the bus, decades old, flat-tired, heaving, and out came the sorry-looking bastards about to experience their first night at the Raft, probably the worst night of their lives.</p><p>When Tony first laid eyes on Peter Parker, he was forty-five, the kid was eighteen, and Tony bet two packs of cigarettes on him breaking down that very night. </p><p>“Look at him. Still gangly. He’ll drop like a fly.” </p><p>Maybe it wasn’t nice. But it was just what happened. You might as well have bet on it.</p><p>“Your loss, Tony,” Rhodey huffed. “The one in front is already crying a little. He’s got shaky legs. Easy prey.”</p><p>“Steve, who’s your horse?”</p><p>“I’ll take in on Rhodey’s action. Shaky-legs. Jelly-legs.”</p><p>“Fucking awful nickname," Tony said.</p><p>“You got anything better?”</p><p>Tony didn't reply. He didn't care in the end what they called their guy.</p><p>“How many?”</p><p>“Let’s say six. Six on Jelly-legs.”</p><p>“Bucky?”</p><p>“I’ll put in four for the little one near the front. Yeah, third back. I can bet you he’s got no more wits about him than hairs on his head.”</p><p>Bucky said this because the man third back was balding. Tony had also begun to go bald, but he was past caring about whether he was or whether Bucky was talking about it or whatever shit. He was past caring.</p><p>The new fish were all chained in a line at the waist and wrists. Some wore suits. Peter Parker wore a stained white shirt and jeans skinned at the knees and a quiet dignity that made Tony look twice at him. Tony didn’t ever wonder about the newbies, but he wondered about Peter, just for a moment.</p><p>Wondering was a little like hope. Tony thought about the smokes he was hoping to win instead.</p><p>All in all, the new fish made their shuffling way inside, the boys continued their yelling and hammering on the chain-link fence until they got away, and the fun was over. That was about as interesting as a day could get at the Raft unless someone decided to beat you up over something.</p><p>The speakers said, <em> “All prisoners, return to your cell blocks for evening count.” </em></p><p> </p><p>A whole hullabaloo was always made of the admission to the Raft. It’s as if you were joining the Army. <em> Line up. Turn to the right. Eyes front. Listen to me. </em>Like goddamn drill sergeants. </p><p>If someone got cocky enough, got to asking a question after the warden was done talking, they’d get twenty seconds of Toomes, the captain of the guards, screaming in their face, and maybe a kick to their privates. He was a real cold-hearted bastard, Toomes. But you have to think that it’s a necessary quality for a prison guard. You're around all these crooks, some truly nasty sons of bitches. It didn't make him any more of a pleasant man.</p><p>Then there was the hosing down. Then the delousing powder. Then, after you got your uniform handed to you, they marched you straight through the cellblocks to your new home, stark fucking naked but for the uniform you clutched about your waist if you had any wits about you, still caked in dregs of powder, still wet, still wondering how the hell you’d ended up in a place like this, a place where your sleeping place was a cage and you were ordered about like cattle, <em> right, right, turn here, left, up the stairs, get a move on.  </em></p><p>Tony remembered his first night. He hadn’t been the one to break down, but he’d cried, that’s for sure. Most everyone lost a little of their sanity on that first night.</p><p>Peter passed him on his way to the next cell. All Tony noticed about him was that his head was held high. There was a forced sort of confidence that hung about him. </p><p>That cell had belonged to Beck, a gaunt guy with wide eyes that most everybody guessed would bug out one day or another. It just hadn’t been predicted that he’d fucking choke a guy.</p><p>
  <em> “Lights out.” </em>
</p><p>Sometimes it was the loneliness. Whether it was your first or thousandth day at the Raft, the loneliness got you all the same. It was insidious. It made the soul clench.</p><p>A receding clatter of footsteps implied the guards had left for the night; this was when it always began.</p><p>“Fish…”</p><p>“Fishy, fishy, fishy!”</p><p>“Come out, fish! Open your mouth!”</p><p>“Hello--o--o?”</p><p>“Let me see that face, little fish. Let me see you cry.”</p><p>“I know your mother, man. I know her well.”</p><p>Resting his arms on the bars of his cell, Tony watched the show.</p><p>“Hey, Jelly-legs,” Steve was saying to the first-timer he'd bet on. Tony could see it playing out in the opposite row of cells, on the ground floor. The poor man was already in tears, shoulders shuddering. Tony grieved his lost packs of Chesterfields. He'd heard no sign of a breakdown from the cell beside his where he knew Peter Parker was.  </p><p>“Why don’t you talk, Jelly-legs? Jelly-legs? Are you scared?”</p><p>Rhodey joined in. “No reason to be scared. There are some real nasties in here, but we’re some of the good ones, God’s honest truth. We can help you out, old sport.” He was really bullshitting it tonight. <em> Old sport.  </em></p><p>“Got some first-class men who’d like to make your acquaintance,” Steve said. “Place is full of people who’d like to get very close to you. Especially that skinny butt. Ever been fucked by another man, Jelly-legs?”</p><p>The breaking point.</p><p>“I don’t wanna be here!” sobbed Jelly-legs in an effusion of anguish and snot.</p><p>Steve and Rhodey hammered on their bars. “We got one!”</p><p>“It’s Jelly-legs!”</p><p>“We have a winner!”</p><p>“Get me out of here! I need my family, I want my mom…”</p><p>The chanting chased his cries: “Fresh fish, fresh fish, fresh fish!” </p><p>Tony kept himself outside the racket. All he was doing was watching the cellblocks light up with noise.</p><p>“Fresh fish, fresh fish, fresh fish! Fresh fish, fresh…”</p><p>“What in sunny hell is going on here?”</p><p>Clapping hands retreated from outside the bars before Toomes could grab them and snap the protruding wrists. He’d done it before.</p><p>“Each and every one of you motherfuckers had better shut it right this instant!”</p><p>They did. Except for Jelly-legs, still whimpering.</p><p>“I’m not meant to be here, I need to get out…”</p><p>This was the trouble when the boys went fishing. Once a first-timer had gone over the edge, they didn’t always have the brains to pack it away in front of Toomes, and there was nothing that made the captain of the guards more furious than a soft man.</p><p>“And what’s stuck up your ass, you goddamn pipsqueak?”</p><p>“I want to go <em> home!” </em></p><p>“You shut up. You shut up when I tell you, or I’ll take you home to hell right now.”</p><p>It was almost palpable in the room, the sudden recession of emotion, the frantic U-turn from a lack of regard to an overdose. <em> Shut up, </em> the crooks echoed wilfully in their minds. Nobody wanted to see a man killed that night, not even them.</p><p>But Jelly-legs kept whimpering, crying so hard Tony wasn’t sure if he even noticed Toomes unsheathing his baton before he was pulled from his cell.</p><p>Toomes hit his stomach and back and knees and shoulder and side and neck and chest and face and the shouts coming from Jelly-legs seemed to last for hours. And then, the cessation. The quiet. The deadly quiet.</p><p>Tony couldn’t help but think that the man was lucky.</p><p>“Would anyone like to join the pipsqueak?” hollered Toomes.</p><p>Of course, there was silence.</p><p>“Then every last dirty bitch in here will shut the fuck up.”</p><p>Toomes walked out, his clean shoes tapping too brightly. The guards dragged Jelly-legs across the floor. He was limp.</p><p> </p><p>Tony had lost a bet he’d been sure he’d win. There wasn’t a sound from Peter Parker’s cell. He couldn’t help but feel intrigued by the kid, the gentle, quiet strength of him. </p><p><em> He’s in for murder </em>, Tony was told. He nearly laughed out loud. Fucking par for the course, apparently, this Bambi-eyed boy somehow getting mixed up in a murder charge. Half of Tony thought that there was no way he could have done it; the other half thought that maybe he was one of those cons who fooled you that way, one of the really fucked-up ones.</p><p>Well, Peter kept to himself those first few weeks, did chores with this quiet composure that annoyed the shit out of you while also putting you at peace. Tony watched, as he was wont to do. The Raft kept spinning around on God’s blighted earth.</p><p>There was a little sadness in Peter’s face. Tony supposed the kid was entitled to a little sadness, given where he was and how young he was. If you were in the Raft, it would pretty much own you for good, whether you died of old age inside your own damn cell or at the hands of the guards, or got out and realised life was no good anymore. </p><p> </p><p>Nobody heard of Jelly-legs again.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Most of the chapters will be about this length, between 2 and 3k. I know there hasn't been much irondad yet but it's coming! I'm working up to it!<br/>I'm planning to update every Saturday from now on. A chapter every week! School is starting up again soon (I haven't had to work since March and now I'm gonna be taught hybrid eek) so the last few chapters may take a little longer to be released.<br/>Updates for this fic will be posted on my tumblr! My url: notaparty-trick</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello again, folks!! It's chapter 2! And finally the irondad content you've all been waiting for :) I hope y'all enjoy!<br/>Come and scream at me on my Tumblr if you'd like: notaparty-trick</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>There is no better way to know us</p><p>Than as two wolves, come separately to a wood. </p><p>
  <em> --Ted Hughes </em>
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</p><p>The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. </p><p>
  <em> --Oscar Wilde </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>There was a river of dirty money running through the Raft and it was Tony who directed it.</p><p>He should have known, really. First, it had been tax returns for a guard. Now, the staff lined up around the goddamn block for his services. Stocks, securities, tax-free municipals. Stane gave him the use of an office for his financial work. If Tony hadn’t known better, he would’ve said the staff treated him real well, but if he had the brains to funnel in all this money he had the brains to see that the money was the only reason why he got all this shit. Money, money, fucking money. Obadiah Stane’s only weakness.</p><p>It didn’t make Tony stronger, however, not by a long shot, because Stane had the liberty and now the funds to trap him in that shithole for all eternity. And now he’d started dealing with the money, it wasn’t like he could politely decline and walk away. Walk away where?</p><p>Today was as fine an afternoon as any you can probably get when you’re hardly considering the afternoon itself. Golden sun. A sepia glow was upon the world. Tony wrapped up work with his papers, replaced his flat cap on his head, and was escorted out into the courtyard where the prison population teemed.</p><p>The documents all led back to a man called Howard Potts. Or maybe Tony should say a not-man. A ghost. An empty name. If anyone got suspicious about the origin of all that money, they would only ever trace it back to <em> Mr. Potts, a distant investor. </em> It was a pretty nifty scheme. The only downfall was that it was putting thousands into Stane’s pockets.</p><p>Tony was past caring.</p><p>
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</p><p>Under that same bleeding sun, Peter Parker approached him for the first time. Fresh number across the chest of his prison-issue shirt, but the same skinned-at-the-knees denim trousers. He was without a hat, hair gelled back but for a few errant strands that hung about his face, looking like a perfect teenybopper. </p><p>He got close, looking nervous and curious all at once. Tony recalled his own youth, his own stint as a cannonball of emotion.</p><p>The kid squinted up at him a little.</p><p><em> I’m Peter Parker, </em> he was told, and he introduced himself in return. <em> I’m Tony Stark. </em></p><p>“You’re in for murder, aren’t you?”</p><p>Peter didn’t have anything to say about that.</p><p>“Well, there’s no shame in it here. I’m murder and manslaughter. Bucky, over there, he’s murder too. A whole tribe of us.”</p><p>He hadn’t said it kindly, exactly. This was a moment of testing the waters. But for whatever reason, Tony felt predisposed to be nice.</p><p>Peter’s eyes grew hard. “Well, I didn’t do it.” </p><p>“Uh-huh. Sure, you didn’t.”</p><p>Peter took a step back then, a breath huffing out of his chest that seemed almost pompous, almost like a show of righteous indignation. Tony wondered if this kid didn’t have a stick up his ass after all.</p><p>Eventually, he said, “I understand that you’re a man who knows how to get things.”</p><p>“I’m known to locate certain things from time to time,” Tony reeled off. This was how it went.</p><p>And then Peter Parker asked Tony for a pencil.</p><p><em> Sweet Jesus, </em> Tony wanted to say, but he just looked at the kid’s face first. Sincerity was all over it. That kid had enough sincerity to make any con want to hurl.</p><p>“That’ll take a little effort, kid,” he half-joked, wondering if his new acquaintance was actually naive enough to take him up for a driven-up price.</p><p>“I bet it will.” But Peter’s tongue was stuck stubbornly in his lower lip.</p><p>“Okay, I was fucking with you.”</p><p>The kid began to rifle through his pockets. “Four smokes?”</p><p>“Five.”</p><p>A quizzical sort of smirk passed across the kid’s face then, the sort of subtle expression you don’t easily forget. </p><p>“Five,” he said, handing them over.</p><p> </p><p>Something about that sadness in the kid’s face gave Tony the batshit idea of calling him over one evening in the cafeteria while they dealt out cards in the spaces between their dinner trays. Peter, who always sat alone, darted his head back and forth as if wondering if he’d imagined Tony speaking. Tony nodded. The kid got up and trashed his empty tray then stood behind the group of them. His gaze was intent. Tony’s neighbours shot him quizzical glances.</p><p>“Never played poker,” admitted the kid eventually.</p><p>Clint rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m not about to teach him.” </p><p>He was playing with them for some goddamn reason. This was one of his things: he’d just show up. He also had a mohawk. It gave most of the other boys the idea he was a cocky piece of shit, but Tony knew better. It really just was the way he was.</p><p>The kid dawdled.</p><p>Helping him out, Tony said, “Got anything worth putting into the middle?”</p><p>“Just some… uh, some Pall Malls.” </p><p>There was always this conflict in Peter Parker, a semi-constant twitching between an uncaring sort of confidence and a more nervous, awkward disposition.</p><p>“How many?”</p><p>He fished around, checked them. “Half a pack right now.” </p><p>“Half a pack?” Rhodey began making these shooing motions. He was being a dick, but also being sort of friendly. A friendly dick. “Get outta here, kid,” he laughed.</p><p>“Wasn’t my idea anyway,” said Steve. No-one had asked him.</p><p>Although Peter turned to leave, Tony thought that he must have felt the moment of warmth between him and the boys. It gave them all pause. A welcome levity.</p><p>“Hey, what’s your crime?” Bucky asked him.</p><p>That look came upon Peter again.</p><p>“Nothing. I’m innocent.” </p><p>“Of course. Well, everyone’s innocent here. When are you getting out of here, then?” </p><p>“Never, probably,” the kid muttered, studying the floor. </p><p>“Life?” </p><p>He looked up then. “Life.” </p><p>Burn between his lips, Bucky huffed and remarked, “Shit, we have ourselves a hardened criminal.”</p><p>The huddle of old bums regarded their new companion, cards forgotten for the moment, and Tony watched Peter fade under the scrutiny. Something about them killed a light in the kid’s eyes just then.</p><p>Thrusting a hand through his hair, Peter left.</p><p>Rhodey continued to deal.</p><p>“Did we do something?” </p><p>“Who knows? Kid seems touchy.”</p><p>Tony agreed that it was strange behaviour. He watched the kid’s retreating back. </p><p> </p><p>The routine at the Raft was rigid enough that Tony was certain sometimes that it would kill him. And no, he would not list it for you. Piss off.</p><p>The routine was a cage. It left him feeling like a fucking infant under the care of some of the toughest nannies the world had ever known. A con, an infant. Maybe the two are similar. Running on bone-deep instincts. Dependent on their mothers, dependent on dope, money, adrenaline, dependent on the very same system that fucks them daily.</p><p>Land of the free, huh?</p><p>They wore the same clothes. Received the same threats from Toomes and Stane and the guards. Ate the same breakfast and lunch and dinner at the same time. Smoked the same cigarettes. Got holed up in their cells promptly every night. God, it was stifling. Everyone deprived of the freedom of being a man. It was the only thing everyone at the Raft felt at the same time. Beating hearts, shrivelling, waiting for freedom, keeping themselves alive by whatever principle they could cling to.</p><p>Hope, Tony had shunned from the beginning. His hope had run dry the moment Faith first left her side of the bed cold. Hope was dangerous. Hope killed.</p><p> </p><p>The inmates at the Raft showered communally. You had to train yourself to look in the right places to avoid seeing shit you didn’t want to see, and after sixteen years of being in close proximity to all his butt-naked fellows, Tony had mostly desensitized himself. Peter, however, clearly hadn’t, poor fucking kid. There was nowhere for him to turn that would shield him from the rest of the boys, but goddamn if he wasn’t looking for a place like it was his salvation.</p><p>From a few feet away, Tony watched Larry Miller size Parker up with a rake of his gaze up and down his body. It was the way Miller would always look at his victims and there was something truly and irrevocably fucked-up about it.</p><p>Goddamn, Tony thought. Not this.</p><p>Larry made it past a line of inmates to reach the kid. People knew to move for him.</p><p>See, even inside the walls there was a hierarchy. It’s how the world works. And in a melting-pot of crooks and psychos, it’s the biggest pieces of shit that make it to the top.</p><p>Miller, Robinson, Simmons, the three of them - the Ravagers, they called themselves - they crowned the top of the Raft’s pecking order, if there was ever such a thing. Didn’t mean they were well-liked, though. Not by a long fucking shot. They were feared. Tony tasted arsenic in their presence.</p><p>Then Miller was leaning in - murmuring something - and the kid was leaning away, and when he made to leave Miller took his arm. Just for half a second. Not long enough to inspire panic in the guards supervising their showering, but long enough to get Peter to jerk away.</p><p>Larry smiled.</p><p>Tony stood and watched.</p><p> </p><p>It had been months by now, long enough that Tony had become used to Peter Parker, his quiet presence and strange ways. The kid was a fucking jawbreaker candy, layer upon layer of colours hidden beneath his reservation, but Tony wasn’t in the business of discovering the layers of people like a damn shrink or something, so he left pretty well alone.</p><p>They were being marched out of their cells on a May morning. Peter said to him: “It’s a good morning, isn’t it?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t particularly know. I mean, how would you? No sunlight in here.”</p><p>“I don’t know, it just feels - good. Don’t you think so?”</p><p>“If you say so.”</p><p>“You don’t?”</p><p>“I don’t think of all that much this early in the morning, kid, to tell you the truth.”</p><p>Peter had just grinned, this small, secret grin that he tucked into himself. “Good morning,” Tony caught him muttering once more.</p><p>So, to summarise, for a while he thought the kid might just be fucking insane. Off-the-hook cuckoo. </p><p>A grin in the cellblock? It was foreign, mystifying.</p><p> </p><p>They got to talking every morning, just a few words. It became that Tony knew the agony of the night was over at the sound of the kid’s voice.</p><p>“How old are you anyways?” he said once. “Twelve?”</p><p>He’d been fucking around, but it wasn’t far off what he might have guessed had the kid not been in a prison for adults.</p><p>“Eighteen.”</p><p>“Ah, the ripe old age of eighteen. Should’ve murdered your guy a little earlier, gotten into juvie instead.”</p><p>The kid got defensive all of a sudden. </p><p>“You’re an asshole. It wasn’t like that.”</p><p>“Do tell, then. What <em> was </em>it like? My boys are all dying to know.”</p><p>“Quit asking about it,” Peter grit out.</p><p>Tony gave goading the kid along one more try. “C’mon. Crimes never stay hidden long in here.”</p><p>“Screw you.”</p><p>“Jesus. Screw you too.”</p><p> </p><p>You know what Tony missed? He missed women. God, he missed girls. He missed fucking them. Watching them dance. Their high-pitched laughter. Women were soft and sharp all at the same time. They were everywhere, and they were beautiful and ugly and above all, Tony missed having a woman to fuck. But he also missed having a girl who would touch his face gently and who would make him a meal and who would smile up at him and call him hers.</p><p>He’d had girls. He’d had plenty. Girls weren’t real at the Raft. They were smiling in posters and half-naked in magazines and made up of words out of the mouths of washed-up cons. They were fantasy. They were Tony’s fantasy. He wanted a girl to wander up from behind him and hold him. But he didn’t tell anyone because they’d think he was fucking soft and he was.</p><p>He missed being able to choose when to see the sun. He wanted sunrise. He wanted dusk. He wanted the Maine coastline where he’d grown up. He wanted a million women and none. He wanted to have a home and a kid who he’d carry on his shoulders. He wanted to believe in God.</p><p> </p><p>With the pencil Tony had smuggled for him, Parker got to crouching in the corner of the courtyard and scribbling furiously on a whole amusing assortment of items. Crumpled scrap paper, the inside of torn-up cigarette packs, disposable napkins - you name it, he filled it with words. Tony played his endless games of catch and was sometimes distracted by the ferocity with which that kid wrote. It was like he was waging war with the napkins and smoke packs and scrap paper. Sometimes, he’d actually punch through his page with the pencil point.</p><p>That <em> fire. </em> It was something. It was fucking something.</p><p>“Didn’t know you were a writer, kid,” Tony called back to him out of curiosity one day.</p><p>Peter didn’t even lift his eyes from the page he was scrutinising. “Poet.” </p><p>“Huh?” </p><p>“I’m gonna be a poet.”</p><p>Maybe the stick-up-his-ass theory of Tony’s had been right. What con writes poems?</p><p>Heading over, he let his curiosity win for a moment. “Let me see some of it?” </p><p>“Nope.” </p><p>“Okay, asshole.” </p><p>“Hey, can I get something else from you?” the kid asked, finally looking up at Tony.</p><p>“Tell me you’re asking for a notebook. Watching you hack away at those napkins is driving me up the fucking wall.” </p><p>“No. I want you to get me a ring.”</p><p>Here unfolded another instance of thousands to come in which Peter Parker well and truly fucked Tony’s expectations.</p><p>“You’re strange,” Tony told him with a grin of disbelief.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“What, were you married before you ended up in here?”</p><p>As if Tony hadn’t said anything, Peter bowled right on, gesturing with sudden energy: “I don’t want anything expensive, just a circle of wire will do. I can even bend it myself if that works better.”</p><p>Tony was getting one hell of a kick out of this. What the fuck, right? Life was about to get a hell of a lot more interesting with this weird-ass kid around. </p><p>“I’ll do it for a pack.” </p><p>“Great,” the kid said. </p><p>“Hey, not to be a wise guy, but I’d advise that you stay away from those Ravager sons of bitches. Larry seems to have taken a liking to you. They’re all in for aggravated rape if you didn’t know, and they’re what you’d call bull queers. They like to do some fucking sick things with certain people they manage to get their hands on. You don’t want to get caught up in that.” </p><p>“Okay.” Rubbing at his nose as if it wasn’t a big deal, the kid shrugged and said, “I mean, there’s not much I can do, is there?”</p><p>He was right.</p><p> </p><p><em> Bull queer. </em> A man who takes other men by force - who likes it that way. The more their prey attempts to escape, the more they enjoy it.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Honestly, I'm kinda on a roll with writing this and I'm at chapter 8 of a possible 12 chapters so,,, would you guys be interested in me starting to post twice a week once I'm sure i'll be able to uphold it?? Or is once a week better? GIve me your opinion if you have any and if not i'll surprise you guys ;)<br/>Thank you for reading!! I adore all of you and I also adore lots and lots of gratification so comments of any length are greatly appreciated :)<br/>My Tumblr so you can stay up to date with my content or come and yell at me for setting up yet more Peter whump: notaparty-trick</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You guys were all super enthusiastic about bi-weekly posting, so... I'm gonna do that! I'll now be updating this work every Saturday *and* Tuesday and Chapter 4 is releasing this coming Tuesday! Let's just hope I can get out the last few chapters before it all catches up to me eeeek </p><p>Trigger warning for Chapter 3: some physical and verbal abuse, uhhhh some period-typical sexism I guess but this work is kinda rife with it?? It's actually quite fun as a female human able to control fake things fake male humans say about fake females. at least I have power over the old-fashioned misogyny right????</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> J'ai ajusté mes pansements, pour que mes saignements </em>
</p><p><em> Soient beaucoup moins apparents, sur la piste d'argent. </em> </p><p>I arranged my bandages so that my bleeding </p><p>would be less visible on the silver floor.</p><p><em>--Eddy de Pretto,</em> <em>Fete de trop </em></p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>It’s not that I’m dumb to the beauty of things. I take all the beautiful things to heart, and they fuck my heart till I about die from it.</p><p>
  <em> --Nico Walker, Cherry </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> September 1952 </em>
</p><p>Though the sun had barely risen that morning, it had already gotten fierce enough to bore holes through everyone’s heads while they assembled in the courtyard. Those rays cooked your brain. They really did.</p><p>Stane was there, lording it over Tony and all the inmates in his cellblock. He even had a little fucking microphone stand. Rhodey stood next to Tony with his cap and dark trousers and the number <em> 30984 </em>on his shirt. If their suspicions were correct, they’d be trading these outfits for grey overalls today. Tony wasn’t a fan of the overalls but he was a fan of going out and working.</p><p>See, Stane had this scheme where he’d set prisoners to work. Prison labour, yes. But the added perk for the warden was essentially that it loaded even more fucking dough into his pockets than Tony’s money laundering did alone. By working the boys for free, he’d get the profits. It was really that simple.</p><p>Tony liked the work. He liked that he had something purposeful to do. He could smoke and talk while he was at it. And it exempted them from the routine, the cock-sucking routine.</p><p><em> You’ll be breaking up rocks, </em> Stane told them.</p><p>Rhodey shot Tony a look. Dicking around with rocks wasn’t their favourite form of employment, but they’d had to deal with sewage once, so they counted their blessings.</p><p>Everyone in the cellblock got roped in, old and new fish. The oldies knew how it went by now, but the newcomers were in for a surprise if the guards decided to break them in.</p><p>Tony winced, thinking of the Parker kid.</p><p> </p><p>Since almost the moment Rhodey got landed in the Raft for bank robbery, he and Tony had been close. They were a couple of old sinners, just hanging on to one another as life swept them by with its rapid current.</p><p>The first time Tony had set his eyes on Rhodey had naturally been during the fishing on the day of Rhodey’s arrival, but the second had been when he’d broken up a fight between him and an inmate who was long gone now. Rhodey had been making remarks about the guy’s mother, Tony had gathered. </p><p>He took him aside and told him that saying stupid shit would get him nowhere. Their friendship began.</p><p>Rhodey was a straight man, despite his initial behaviour. He’d been rattled. He’d come to the realisation that all men at the Raft have to come to at some point during their stay, the realisation that <em> this was it. </em> </p><p>Tony knew Rhodey would be let back into the world real soon. It hardly even made him depressed. It was just inevitable. Friends weren’t the same on the inside. You had to be ready to drop them like lightning if they did something out of order or made parole or got transferred. You couldn’t care too much.</p><p> </p><p>They were given the overalls and shipped out to a field of rocks and given pickaxes. The work began.</p><p>It was pretty mind-numbing to hack at those rocks without distraction, so mostly Tony spoke with Rhodey. Clint worked beside them and told them about his kids as he was wont to do. Tony felt ready to punch someone or maybe cry whenever Clint talked about his kids, so he tried to talk about other things, but you can imagine that there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. They talked about the women they’d fucked if they were really coming up empty. None of them, not Steve or Bucky either, were those types of guys.</p><p>It was one of those days where they’d even run out of women they’d fucked. That’s when Peter, a few feet away from their group, burst into song.</p><p>
  <em> “Blue Monday, how I hate Blue Monday </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Got to work like a slave all day </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Here comes Tuesday, oh, hard Tuesday </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I'm so tired, got no time to play…” </em>
</p><p>He brought his pickaxe down decisively, rhythmically, punctuating each line.</p><p>The group eyed one another. A smile flitted across Tony’s face entirely against his own damn will.</p><p>Through his first few lonely lines, the kid kept his head down. He had a surprisingly resonant voice. A little high pitched; lilting.</p><p>It must have captivated the boys that day, because all of a sudden there was a chorus joining his voice, braving the sour expressions of the guards.</p><p>
  <em> “Here comes Wednesday, I'm beat to my socks </em>
</p><p>
  <em> My gal calls, got to tell her that I'm out </em>
</p><p>
  <em> 'Cause Thursday is a hard workin' day </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And Friday I get my pay.” </em>
</p><p>Tony caught Peter smothering a little grin.</p><p>The guards couldn’t touch them for singing. Technically, it was no worse than talking. The Parker kid had just managed to outsmart them with a move so simple it brought out the veins in Toomes’ temples. What a pretty sight, right?</p><p>
  <em> “Saturday mornin', oh, Saturday mornin' </em>
</p><p>
  <em> All my tiredness has gone away </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Got my money and my honey </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And I'm out on the stand to play…” </em>
</p><p>Nudging Steve’s shoulder, Tony got the uptight old bastard to join in. It must have reached the entire group of inmates by the last verse.</p><p>
  <em> “Sunday mornin' my head is bad </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But it's worth it for the time that I had </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But I've got to get my rest </em>
</p><p>
  <em> 'Cause Monday is a mess.” </em>
</p><p>“Take a break,” Toomes snapped.</p><p>There it was: the moment of decision. The line crossed in Toomes’ expression. The new fish were going to pay.</p><p>The moment he spotted a newbie laying down their tool, he got up in the stricken-looking guy’s face, a picture of intimidation - Toomes was a pretty formidable man, Tony supposed, when you weren’t the guy doing his taxes for him. With lightning in his eyes, he barked, “Did I tell you to stop?” </p><p>“Yes, sir,” Peter butted in helpfully from beside them. “You said we could take a break.”</p><p>Toomes whirled to face the kid.</p><p>Grabbing fistfuls of his overalls, Toomes shook him about. He was in a mighty rage. “Did I give you--” He released him only to take out his baton and tap the kid smartly in the chest with it-- “<em> You </em>, you little motherfucker - permission to stop working?”</p><p>But Peter neither cowered nor blustered. He simply stood there, this faint smile upon him.</p><p>“No, sir,” he said, the picture of obedience.</p><p>Tony knew as well as any man who’d served enough time at the Raft that Toomes was not a man who liked to back down. Once someone had made him mad, it was all over until he saw that someone either crying or passed out on the floor - at whatever cost. </p><p>“Then get back to those goddamn rocks, idiot.” </p><p>“Yes, sir.” </p><p> </p><p>That day, Toomes worked the new fish through every single break. The temperature must have cleared ninety once the sun broke out in all its wrath from behind a pathetic layer of cloud and began to beat them into submission; while even Tony felt a little light-headed, the newbies became visibly pale, sweat-drenched, husks of themselves.</p><p>“May we take our bottles of water, sir?” the kid asked boldly as the oldies grabbed theirs from a tray.</p><p>“No, you may not. And don’t ask for anything else.” </p><p>He said, “Yes, sir,” again, resuming his work.</p><p>And so the game went.</p><p>It only really began, however, when a new fish thrust his pickaxe away with long, fine fingers and declared that he wouldn’t work any longer.</p><p>There was this ominous nod that was shared among the guards then. Toomes went up to the guy.</p><p>“You wanna repeat that?”</p><p>The man with the long fingers was silent, looking up into Toomes’ face.</p><p>“Hey, dick-licker! I asked you to repeat what you just said!”</p><p>“You can’t make me work like this any longer,” mumbled the guy.</p><p>“We <em> what?” </em></p><p>Toomes was milking it for all he was worth. What a fuck.</p><p>“Can’t make me work like this any longer.”</p><p>Without a word, Toomes knocked the guy on his ass and got out his goddamn baton again, only this time he used it for more than a prod. All Tony could see were that man’s long fingers fretting against the dirt.</p><p>The newbies had stopped to watch it, all of them wide-eyed, coming to a realisation. Toomes stepped away from the groaning man and saw them. “What’s so interesting, huh? Back to work.”</p><p>They worked. The rest of them were brought back on. Then they took a break but the newbies worked still. Another two went down, both falling unconscious and getting carted straight to the infirmary. Lucky pricks.</p><p> </p><p>It was strange to watch the new fish working - this slice of criminal life, young and old but all covered in the same dirt, digging away through the furnace-like heat with such frantic conviction. Peter worked on without another sound, hardly raising his head. You got the feeling that maybe he wasn’t even feeling the hardship of the job. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, his own silent determination. Maybe he was making up a poem.</p><p>Naturally, this made Toomes angrier.</p><p>Noon passed, and afternoon, and it became that those of them who weren’t newbies were resting more often than working. The guards surrounded the new fish instead and tried to goad them into giving up. They had probably bet on it.</p><p>A young man, Thompson, threw down his tools and was duly fucked up. Harrington and another guy Tony couldn’t identify by name swooned in the heat. Then a whole crowd of newbies surrendered to the wrath of the guards at the same time and all hell broke loose while the guards carried out all their punishments at the same time. </p><p>One by one, they dropped. Until - yes, you fucking guessed it - the kid stood alone.</p><p>He’d been toiling for just about ten hours straight. There was a kind of power to him, to the dust and sweat on his overalls and the trembling of his arms and the pinched tenacity in his countenance and the <em> swing, hit, swing, hit </em> of his pickaxe, never faltering. Everyone left had their eyes on him, and you knew he could tell. He didn’t show off about it, though. Tony didn’t believe he had the energy to do so, even if he’d been cocky enough. All he did was keep his head down and keep working.</p><p>This wasn’t enough of a show for Toomes, so he got the guards to start talking to Parker. One held out a water bottle in the hope that he’d reach for it so he could then snatch it away. No such luck.</p><p>“Four-two-oh-five-eight,” Toomes said to him, not even using his name, just his number, “One of my colleagues is offering you refreshment.”</p><p>Peter looked up at them briefly. “No, thanks.”</p><p><em>“No, thanks? </em>”</p><p>“I’m alright, sir.”</p><p>Rhodey nudged him. <em> This’ll be a good show, </em> he mouthed.</p><p>Tony raised his eyebrows.</p><p>The guards got to making comments.</p><p>“Get your shit together, runt! Swing it like you mean it!”</p><p>“You’d like to take a break, though, wouldn’t you? It’s easy. Just stop.”</p><p>“What, are you getting tired?”</p><p>“Just like the way I’m gonna break open your ass tonight.”</p><p>Apart from a tightening in Parker’s jaw, there was no indication he’d even heard the taunts.</p><p>It was when he raised his pickaxe just a fraction higher than before that a guard got jumpy. He hit Peter clean across the back, sending him to the ground face-first. That was too far. You don’t hit a kid for no reason.</p><p>Tony knew the guard to be Herman Schultz, a man the other staff might call <em> enthusiastic </em> and the inmates would recognize as <em> a complete fucking sadist. </em> Well, he’d have his good days. But on his bad days, his lack of brains could quite literally prove lethal.</p><p>Don’t ask Tony about what happened to Yinsen.</p><p>Then ensued a moment of singular unity as both guards and cons waited to see what the kid would do.</p><p>Peter’s nose was bloody when he got up. But that was all he did: get up. He reached for his pickaxe and continued his work.</p><p>That sort of thing earned a man a lot of respect. Sometimes kicking in a guard’s privates could also earn a man respect but that was touch and go. Besides, this kid was of a whole different breed to the poor motherfuckers who kicked in a guard’s privates and were knocked straight to hell with a baton for it. He was almost enchanting<em> . </em> </p><p>The guards certainly couldn’t touch him again. The rest of them were put to digging for another hour, then, as the sun reddened and sank to the horizon, they went home.</p><p> </p><p>Though the kid had become somewhat of a local god, there was also an understanding between the rest of the inmates that he might not have been in the mood to get chummy with his fellow crooks just then. Besides, every one of them wanted to see that kid turn his back on the guards at the end of the day without breaking. So they left him alone.</p><p>Peter looked ill. Tony wasn’t fucking surprised by that.</p><p> </p><p>They returned to their cells for the night. Just a few steps until the kid could say that he’d won. Tony wondered if it was pride that was flaring up in his chest thinking about that. A goddamn weird kind of pride if it was, but who cared?</p><p>Not two feet from the entrance of his cell, Peter staggered then dropped, every string cut in his limbs.</p><p>
  <em> Well, shit. </em>
</p><p>He was a puddle before Tony now, blocking the way to his own door.</p><p>Rhodey was behind Tony. Turning to shoot him a glance, Tony nodded down at the prone kid. They reached an understanding.</p><p>Tony lifted him under his armpits, Rhodey under his hips, and they heaved him bodily into his cell, dropping him on the bed. The cell was still pretty bare, pretty depressing. The only object that caught his eye was the bundle of word-filled scrap paper by the bed.</p><p>It was of the utmost importance now that they woke the kid before their disappearance was noted. If a guard saw them in another cell or Peter didn’t stand by the bars to be counted before lights out, it would all be for shit.</p><p>All passed out the way he was, that kid looked terrifyingly young.</p><p>Tony got to tapping on his face, shaking his shoulders. Rhodey lifted his legs and squeezed his ankles for good measure. It was a frantic but silent operation, both of them watching the kid intently until they caught his eyes sliding open.</p><p>“What?” he croaked. “I pass out?”</p><p>“Two feet more and you’d have been home free home,” Tony told him honestly. </p><p>“Shit.” With a hand splayed over his face - on his ring finger was that dumb-looking circle of wire Tony had gotten for him - Peter smiled lopsidedly. There was definitely a little hysteria working on him. “Really wanted to make it.” </p><p>“It’s pretty damn impressive nonetheless, I’ll tell you that.” Tony clapped him on the shoulder, then recoiled at himself.</p><p>Whatever. He gave the kid a water bottle he’d smuggled from the job inside his loose shirt. Honestly, he didn’t know how he’d intended to use it. This seemed as good a use as any. But the kid looked at him like it was a fucking diamond ring he’d been given.</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“Yeah, it’s fine. Keep it under your bed for the line-up, alright? So they don’t see it.”</p><p>There was not enough damn water in that kid’s brain. He blinked a couple of times. “Huh?”</p><p>“Hide it. You can drink it after lights out.”</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>“You’re something else, kid,” Rhodey said to him before they turned tail and left for their own cells. </p><p>When they lined up to be counted that night, Tony saw Peter come to the bars, leaning against them but there.</p><p>Crazy bastard.</p><p> </p><p>Though the kid had gained respect, it wasn’t like anyone tried to stop the Ravagers from getting to him. Maybe that should have been Tony’s job, but that wasn’t the way it worked at the Raft. If you were looking out for somebody else, you weren’t looking out for yourself, and that was how you got into deep shit.</p><p>You have to understand that Tony wasn’t going out of his way to turn a blind eye. He wasn’t just being an asshole. What could he do? Report the rumours to guards that knew just as much as him already? Punch out the Ravagers and earn himself a trip to the infirmary, maybe a stint in the hole?</p><p>Tony couldn’t claim superiority to the Ravagers by a long shot. He was a sinner, they were sinners, they were all in a melting pot packed full with so many sinners an honest man would choke on it all. Sin is this vaporous thing, a colourless gas, like air. </p><p>First it’s just the thought of sin. Courting the devil. If the devil is anything, she’s someone else’s wife. But then you start sinning so often it becomes commonplace. You forget it's a problem. You start to breathe it in, depend on it. You forget you've invited the devil in the front door. You even learn to live with her though it's not like she’s paying the damn rent.</p><p>And then she shows you up, and you're there.</p><p>The Ravagers had let the devil in a long time ago. They were all fucking her night and day.</p><p>All that shit about sin and the devil makes it sound dramatic, but it really wasn’t. It just happened. And that’s how things were.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Who else would like to chop off Toomes' privates :)))) but I made Tony care about him a little are y'all happy now<br/>Unrelated, but I had my first day at sixth form this week!!! Everyone's so nice there and I'm gonna study English Literature, Theatre and Film which is my DREAM and I'm very incredibly pumped :D they're even somehow putting on a play and i'm auditioning for it and you can sing in it??? How that will work with miss rona idk, but idc either let the adults sort it out i guess<br/>Is anyone else starting school? A new school?? College, uni?? Tell me about it if you like! :)<br/>The song is Blue Monday by Fats Domino if any of you want to listen to it!!<br/>My tumblr where I post about updates to this work and also repost some nice marvel content: notaparty-trick</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Welcome to the first Tuesday chapter!! I have school prep to do so I'll just kind of drop it without much pomp or circumstance or anything. I hope you like it???<br/>oh look a crazy line appears beneath this and it's not on the other chapters?? and i didn't paste it in? ao3 is wild</p><p>Trigger warning for Chapter 4: multiple mild injury descriptions</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>In the morning I had a look so lost, a face so dead, that perhaps those whom I met did not see me. </p><p>
  <em> --Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell - Bad Blood </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>It became pretty much common knowledge that the Ravagers were getting their hands on the kid. </p><p>“The Parker kid is acting strange,” Steve remarked at breakfast.</p><p>“He’s being beaten up by the Ravagers, didn’t you know?”</p><p>And that was pretty much it.</p><p> </p><p>To Peter’s credit, he soldiered on. He continued to write flurries of poetry in the courtyard, continued to trudge through the day’s routine without faltering, even sat with Tony and Rhodey at lunch. It began so subtly the rumour mill was about the only thing proving it was even happening. But when a guard dragged him to his cell that evening by the scruff of the neck - that was when things started to change.</p><p>The kid was bloody, lip busted, knuckles red, and his shirt was undone.</p><p>“Try that once more and it’s a week in the hole,” the guard was shouting at him.</p><p>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>Something was wrong about it. Really fucking wrong. The kid hit the floor; his cell door shut. Tony listened for sounds of a breakdown or an exclamation of anger or even a noise of pain at the wall, but he should have known better than to expect that from Peter. Silence.</p><p>In the morning, he’d cleaned himself up, combed his hair back so those signature strands hung about his face. It didn’t hide his swollen lip. He was calm, though.</p><p>Actually, he was incredibly calm. Serene. In a really fucking odd way. He went out onto the walkway like nothing had happened. Tony hardly knew what to say to him.</p><p>“Think today’ll be a good morning?” he asked eventually, hearkening back to the kid’s prediction of a good day months ago.</p><p>A shrug.</p><p>“I’m relying on your prediction, kid, c’mon. Thought you liked to do this.”</p><p>“I think it’ll be alright.”</p><p>“<em> Alright? </em> Shit, it had fucking better be. Sick of days screwing me around. Now, you’re being serious?”</p><p>Peter laughed furtively.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he said eventually.</p><p>It felt like he was trying to say something else.</p><p> </p><p>Tony had been slacking off on laundry detail, taking as many cigarette breaks as he could get away with. He was handling goddamn underwear; he deserved his breaks. The kid had been working his ass off as usual. He worked like the devil was at his heels. He was swaying as he walked back and forth. Rhodey, Steve, Bucky, Clint, they were all on toilet duty. Godspeed.</p><p>Tony had a pack of Marlboros that day and was greatly enjoying them. But he was distracted by a clatter and a thump across the room and - Christ and sunny Jesus, it was Peter again, collapsed on the floor with his metal tub of clothes upended beside him. What the hell?</p><p>Before the thought of helping him up crossed Tony’s mind, the kid staggered back to his feet himself, palmed at his forehead for a moment or two, bundled the clothes back into his tub, and continued right on.</p><p>Feeling perplexed, Tony crushed what was left of his smoke - it had lost the appeal - and went to join in carting around the shitty underwear.</p><p> </p><p>But it wasn’t over: Parker started making unexplained trips to the infirmary, emerging hours or days later held together by Band-Aids, maybe a sling, maybe even a row of stitches. None of the boys asked about it. They began to beckon him over to their table more often, however, until it became as regular an occurrence as those infirmary absences themselves. A fucked-up, strange, complacent kind of normalcy fell across them.</p><p>In the showers, the kid would scrub himself raw. You’d see the red lines he’d rake across himself. It was as if he got lost while he did it. Tony stopped watching.</p><p> </p><p>It was like this for a few years.</p><p> </p><p>What would happen between the shutting of the cell doors and lights out was that old Uncle Ben would push around this cart of books. Tony didn’t know why that happened but it did. You’d pick one out of there or you’d politely say no. Everyone was polite to Ben. It was like it just wasn’t worth taking the piss out of him when he’d already heard it all. He was nice, too, one of those rare few truly nice people you’ll meet at a prison.</p><p>Nobody knew how old Uncle Ben was. Well, he was <em> old, </em>and that’s for sure. He’d been holed up in the Raft most all of his life. Longer than Tony, longer than Toomes, longer even than Stane. He’d been the prison librarian for about as long.</p><p>And that’s what happened: he’d offer out these books, and they were mostly the same. Tony had certainly read them all before.</p><p>“Tony, up for a book tonight?”</p><p>He approached Ben with a smile. “I’ll take a lucky dip.”</p><p>Ben fished around for a moment, training his gaze deliberately away from the books, then handed him a volume.</p><p>“Thanks. You take care of yourself, Ben.”</p><p>There was a way in which the folds around Uncle Ben’s eyes crinkled into lines that made you feel warmer. </p><p>“The same for you, kid.”</p><p>Peter was the only <em> kid </em> around unless Ben was talking. Ben called everyone <em> kid. </em></p><p>Wheeling his cart onwards, Ben reached the kid’s cell and Tony saw him come to his own bars.</p><p>“Uncle Ben!”</p><p>“My favourite troublemaker.”</p><p>The kid chuckled, cigarette hanging from his lips. He removed it with index and middle finger, moved his arm to the side so the trail of smoke cleared them both, and leaned towards the books, squinting at them. “Please tell me you have something by Allen Ginsburg.” </p><p>Peter was constantly asking for books that weren’t there.</p><p>“I’m afraid not, son.” </p><p>“Jack Kerouac?” </p><p>“No,” was the mild answer.</p><p>“Arthur Rimbaud?” </p><p>Again, “no.”</p><p>“Shit - John Keats?” </p><p>“No.” </p><p>“This is stupid.” At that, the kid took a moody drag of his cigarette.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ben told him earnestly. </p><p>Peter rushed to amend then: “No, it’s not your fault. Uh, I’ll - I’ll just take whatever’s closest. Thanks.”</p><p>He went back into his cell, and Tony went back into his, not sleeping more than two hours. Guilt kept him awake most of the time. Fear, too, because he was a pussy and he knew it. He saw Faith in his dreams. Saw a kid. He didn’t want to see that shit.</p><p> </p><p>Peter had won over the softer guards. Tony watched him trade cigarettes with them, engage in quiet conversation and meet them a couple of days later with a filled sheet of paper. </p><p>He asked the kid outright what he was writing for them.</p><p>“Poetry,” the kid replied. “For their wives.”</p><p>He was a smart son of a bitch. It took Tony by surprise every time.</p><p>The kid was sat hunched over a sheet of paper, and Tony thought he was writing more sonnets. If he had actual paper, it would be because the guards had given it to him to make the poems look presentable.</p><p>“What’re you up to?” he asked.</p><p>The kid wrote a little longer then marked the sentence with a full stop. “Writing a letter,” he told Tony, twisting round to see him. He had strips of surgical tape over a cut on his eyebrow, and there was a bruise behind that cut.</p><p>“To…?” </p><p>“The funding board. I’m gonna piss them off until they give me money for the library.” </p><p>Tony’s eyebrows lifted of their own accord. The kid was acting out one of his big ideas. Of course.</p><p>“Where did that come from?” </p><p>Passing a hand over a dubious bruise on his neck, the kid glanced back at the letter, then at Tony again. “Well, I’m the prison librarian now along with Uncle Ben, and the library is <em> severely </em> underfunded. There’s not a single poetry book in all that shit. Thought everyone should be able to read something good.”</p><p>“You really move fast, don’t you?” Tony remarked with a huff.</p><p>The kid met Tony’s gaze then. He got all sincere. “If I didn’t, I’d be dead before I got anything worthwhile done.” </p><p>“You’re a long way from dying, kid.” </p><p>Peter pushed his hair back. “I don’t know,” was all he said.</p><p> </p><p>The kid was always battered, but that evening he was incredibly fucking battered. He winced as he sat down. A blood vessel had burst in his eye. It was clear he'd been bested.</p><p>He looked at them with his reddened eye. "Hey, fellas."</p><p>Since he was willing to keep up a pretense, the others all followed his lead and greeted him. </p><p>Then Rhodey proposed they play poker. "We'll teach you. Why not, right?"</p><p>You could tell the kid knew he was offering to teach him because he was battered and looked like he was in a hell of a lot of pain, not because he had a genuine desire to mentor him. He said yes all the same. </p><p>The cards were dealt out. Tony eyed Peter again. It was hard not to look at him. Looking at him made your very heart sink down the rungs of your spine. What he kept doing was fiddling with that wire-twisted ring on his finger, spinning it back and forth over skin that had been rubbed raw by the motion. Had the kid managed to get married before his sentencing, Tony wondered, and kept it quiet? </p><p>The fact that he had the wire smuggled from the real world was pretty fucking odd. It must have meant something.</p><p>"Take a Pall Mall while you're here, huh?" Clint was saying to the kid, waving one under his nose. Peter accepted it with a small smile. The kid was always smoking Pall Malls. Clint didn't much, but he was being kind. Clint even offered to light it for him, acting like a fucked-up kind of babysitter or something, but, smiling another small smile, Parker declined.</p><p>Nobody missed the shaking in his fingers as he lit the smoke. <em> Goddamn, </em> Tony was thinking. He was pretty sure the people around him were thinking just about the same thing.</p><p>“You can win the round with a pair of cards, yeah,” Rhodey told the kid. “That’s usually the easiest way.”</p><p>“What if we both had pairs?”</p><p>“Highest number gets the winnings. Let’s say you have a pair of twos. I have a pair of tens, so I beat your ass.”</p><p>“Except I’ll beat <em> your </em>ass once I figure it out.”</p><p>“Uh-huh. Sure. Well, I’ve dealt and you’ve got two cards. You can choose to fold, check, or raise. If you fold, you don’t get a chance at winning and you’re a pussy. Checking means you keep your bet of whatever shit you put in the middle, and if you raise it you put more in.”</p><p>From across the cafeteria, Tony could see Miller, the fucker, grinning. Motherfucking queer sack of shit. Tony suddenly felt that he should go over there and fuck the guy up so he'd never be able to grin like that again. He very nearly did. It would've been like Jesus overturning the trader's tables in the Temple; righteous anger. </p><p>Except it wouldn't've, because Tony was about as far from Jesus as it got. He was an asshole who didn't stick up for his friends.</p><p>Then Peter got up to leave, having lost - of course, but not by a long shot, so there was still hope that he'd go on to steal winnings from them all - and Tony couldn't help but speculate about just how much more the kid was hurting than he let on, how much he was hiding. </p><p>It was killing him a little; you could tell. As if the slow asphyxiation the Raft delivered to you wasn't painful enough.</p><p> </p><p>The goddamn kid kept being absent and all Tony wanted to do was play a motherfucking game of draughts but nobody wanted to and it would always be Peter who’d play with him but he was in the infirmary probably healing another set of bruises or some shit.</p><p>He’d even put the board and pieces out on the bleachers. He’d forgotten the kid had been gone since Saturday. Sometimes Tony wondered if one day he’d just disappear. If he’d end up like Jelly-legs. He’d simply fade from the consciousness of everyone who had once known him. </p><p>Or at least, everyone would pretend that had happened. You didn’t grieve at the Raft.</p><p>Ben noticed his strife and came over, easing himself down and offering to play with him.</p><p>“Kid’s standing you up, huh?”</p><p>“Don’t rub it in.”</p><p>“He’s a good kid.”</p><p>“Yeah. He’s a good kid.”</p><p>“It’s a shame.”</p><p>“Mm."</p><p> </p><p>And they played draughts. And it was cool, winter. And when Peter got out of the infirmary the next day he walked funny for a little while.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>chapter 5 will resolve all this mess i Promise you guys<br/>hello again!!! please scream at me if you need to!! also saying nice things would be really lovely :) i love you allllll</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The next chapter is a-go and everything from the last few chapters comes to a head!! I'm feeling very glad that I pre-wrote all this stuff because I haven't had a single moment to write all this week - school is crazy but awesome! I auditioned for the school play (which is much Ado About Nothing and I LOVE Much Ado About Nothing so I'm very excited) and I'll tell you guys whether I got in when I post the next chapter! Have fun and stay safe, folks!</p><p>Trigger warning for Chapter 5: physical assault and violence; attempted rape. The section which includes a description of the latter is very short, so if you wish to avoid it, stop reading at: “And then Tony was kicking in the door to the projector room…” and start again at “Peter’s gaze met Tony.” Be aware that the larger scene deals with this subject.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>I beheld many friends, and the friend I love the most, helplessly sink into the swamp I pass by daily. And a drowning was not over in a single morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>--Bertolt Brecht, The Swamp</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>He was sunshine most always - I mean, he made it seem like good weather.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>--Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>When the staff allowed a movie to be played in the hall, it never failed to inspire a tumult of excitement among the inmates. It was just that hard-time crooks tended to express excitement a little differently than most. There was significantly more brawling and swearing than a decent man might expect. The worst-case scenario was ending up in the hole before it was even put on and missing the whole goddamn thing. Although Tony couldn't speak from experience, Bucky could.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't like people to mention it, though. He'd missed </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mexicana</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he was still sore about it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a Saturday and it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gilda. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"It's quite a… surprise," </span>
  </em>
  <span>the gentleman in the movie was saying. Nobody cared much. Every last man in the audience was waiting for Rita Hayworth, their cocks standing to attention. You took anything you could get in prison.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then there was a hubbub of shuffling and footfalls and accusations and Tony glanced over his shoulder for a moment to see the kid climbing towards the seat behind him to the chagrin of the boys in his row.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not now. She's about to come on and do that shit with her hair. I love it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter sat back obligingly.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Gilda, are you decent?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Me?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She rose into frame, a pillar of glowing skin, lips and eyes and cheeks and neck and jaw and Cupid's bow. Her hair fanned out behind her like a tongue of flame. That was the shit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was uproar in the audience. Whistling; applause; long, low cheers; a lot of obscene comments Tony was too wrapped up in his own moment of euphoria to decipher. He knew for sure the greasy fucks in the back row would be jerking off. They were never not jerking off when a woman was involved. The rest of them liked to think they were a little more civilised.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment over, Tony turned back to Peter and saw the funniest look on his face: this pairing of confusion, as if he simply couldn't understand what he was witnessing, and a kind of melancholy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony was pretty much accustomed to seeing the kid's countenance caught up in some bizarre kind of reverie, so he didn't discuss it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter spoke first, whispering under the dialogue of the movie: "Hey, Tony. I was wondering if you'd get me a tape?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yes, Tony was also accustomed to strange requests from the kid, but he paused at this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Dinah Washington. The album is This Is My Story. It's newer, you might not have heard of it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What I haven't heard of is anywhere you might play a cassette round here. What's your big idea?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thing was, Peter had a big idea most always. As far as Tony could tell, it floated around the back of his mind for however long was required until it could come to fruition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"There's a place. I just need the right time. You'll see." Peter grinned. Maybe he was crazy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sure thing, kid." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony had learnt that this was the thing to say to him about his big ideas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It got him cigarettes and amusement, and it got Peter happy, so there was surely nothing wrong with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as they'd made the arrangement Peter made to leave again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're not interested in the movie?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Not particularly."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Rita Hayworth, kid." Tony indicated her on the projection. "Is she not exciting enough for you?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I just - I'd prefer to take a break outside. I don't know."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he was off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so was Tony, a couple of minutes later, going to the men's room, but he never made it there. He was hurrying, wanting to get back to Rita Hayworth, but not running, because nobody runs to the lavatory unless they want to get laughed at. That's when he heard the hits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sounds were ugly and they came from behind the door to the projection room. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kick. Punch. Scuffle. Grunt.</span>
  </em>
  <span> This was no ordinary prison brawl. It sounded like an attack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony paused; he went to the door. The hits started to drown out the distant sounds of the movie. Some shit was going on, that was for certain, but Tony thrust his hands in his pockets and couldn't figure out what he should do about it. His principle was always to stand back, lay low, stay out of trouble. That's how you survived.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fight came to some sort of head, punctuated by a harsh thud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"This is how it's gonna go today." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Larry. Of fucking course.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're gonna sit tight here and take what I give you, then you're gonna take Simmons and Robinson."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What if I scream?" said Peter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter. Peter on the receiving end of those blows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Then, honey--" a deafening thump-- "I'm gonna have to splatter your pretty brains all over this table."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter's next words came out through gritted teeth. "That'd be a shame for you. You'd have to find a new kid to torture."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Always playing hard to get. I like that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then there was the unmistakable ring of a belt unbuckling, and another round of scuffles, and Peter, breathing rapidly, sounding, for the first time since Tony had met him, </span>
  <em>
    <span>scared, </span>
  </em>
  <span>said, "Fuck off, Larry. Not today. Please."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Tony was kicking in the door to the projector room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The three bull queers were with Peter. They had him bent over a table. Simmons and Robinson pinned his arms. Miller lay over him like he was trying to crush him. Peter struggled, but in vain. Miller was humping Peter. His hand was working Peter's pants down below his underwear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christ.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter's gaze met Tony. He was blood and bruises. His countenance was a storm of devastation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was shame there too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Ravagers had noticed his entrance and turned, still holding the kid down. "Stark!" Simmons crowed, completely undeterred. "Here to join the fun?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fuck you," Tony said like an idiot. He was distracted by Peter's eyes pleading for him. His brain was taking coherent thoughts and fucking them too badly to read them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Tony took a step forward, Peter jerked up towards him off the table. Larry saw this and reared his hips back then snapped them forward, ramming the kid's stomach into the table. Peter's legs buckled.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Christ, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Tony thought again and again. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Christ, Christ, what the fuck have I walked into?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Simmons shifted away to stand before Tony while Miller twisted Peter's arm behind his back, still attached to him like a goddamn leech. God, these guys had it down to a T.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Take a walk," Simmons was telling Tony two inches from his face. "This isn't any of your business."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony looked at Simmons's incredibly punchable face. He looked at the hurt all over Peter. He looked at Miller crowding him against the edge of the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I think it's just become my business."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when he brought Simmons's face down on his knee he couldn't deny the overwhelming catharsis of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Larry lunged for him. Tony punched him in the neck. You got pretty knowledgeable about how to throw a decent punch to the neck after a decade or two in a place like the Raft. But if anything, Larry was more knowledgeable than him. He got a hold of Tony and started choking him. Peter had ducked out of Robinson's hold and the two of them were wrestling, Robinson over Peter on the floor. Tony sent a kick backwards to Miller's knee and he stumbled. The blood rushed back to Tony's head. He kicked at Larry again but missed. Peter had punched Robinson in the jaw. Tony punched Larry in the jaw. He caught Larry by the shirt and ran his head into the wall. A bloodstain was left there: a piece of artwork Tony was both proud and terrified of. Peter got the idea and knocked Robinson's head against the floor. Soon they were doing it in unison. They smashed their respective heads against their respective surfaces and at some point Larry went limp. Tony let him drop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid was still hitting Robinson's head on the floor. When it was over, he collapsed a little, and Robinson collapsed all the way. They breathed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now Tony wasn't sure what to do again. There were bodies on the floor and his knuckles were busted and everything had gotten real quiet. Everything felt irrevocably fucked. Everything had gone to shit and it took the kid a while to realise his pants were still down. He hauled himself up, buttoned them, re-buckled his belt, and it was the most goddamn awkward shit Tony had ever lived through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid was a walking bruise poured into a prison uniform. Tony had never seen him look worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Goddamn, kid, you really had it rough," he remarked, just to have something to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter was leant against the wall. He just smiled. It was an awful smile, bloodstained and pained and embarrassed and defeated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Don't worry." He brought a protective hand to his abdomen. "Happens all the time."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just as Tony was about to bust his ass for the horrifying humour of that comment, he crumpled with the violence of burning paper. Standing one minute, eating shit the next.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony crouched by him. The kid was gasping in pain, this series of little desperate gasps. Tony's first thought was that maybe Peter was being a pussy and his second thought was that he wouldn't easily take Peter Parker for a pussy and he ended up just saying, "Kid?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sorry. Fuck. I'm good."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Peter didn't get up, just continued to clutch at his torso. His eyes were hazy. "Fucking hell," he said under his breath. Something was up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony yanked up the kid's shirt - which he'd already tucked back into his pants, the dork - and sure enough, over the left side of his ribcage, right where he'd hit the edge of the table, was a terrifying-looking mass of purple swelling. Peter was decidedly not being a pussy.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Fucking hell</span>
  </em>
  <span> is about right," Tony told him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter tugged his shirt clear of the area and craned his neck to see it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Shit," was all he managed to choke out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah, I think you're gonna wanna head for the infirmary right about now."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And to his surprise, the kid did just that. He got up with a groan. He almost immediately pitched to the side and hit the wall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony decided that was a dumb way to go about things and he pulled the kid's arm over his shoulders instead. Peter gasped again. It made something in Tony punch itself viciously, but they had to make it to the infirmary somehow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Thank you," the kid breathed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At a loss for where to put his other hand that wouldn't make him gasp any more, Tony found himself sticking it near his armpit. Peter didn't seem to care or notice. He was putting every ounce of focus he had into putting one foot in front of the other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were out in the corridor then, under the blinking lights. Nobody was around and that was a goddamn miracle. Luck was finally on the kid's side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How about we tell the nurses they hit us then themselves?" Tony muttered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter just nodded, his jaw locked like a vice. Tony felt like he was holding broken china, not a man. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A </span>
  <em>
    <span>kid.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After three days, Tony was allowed to visit him in the infirmary. Three days was enough to procure a cassette of Dinah Washington from the outside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid was laid up in bed, hospital gown and all. He looked pretty exhausted, that was for sure, and still purple with bruises like a fucking prune. His hair was ungelled, and that was the real kicker. He'd always gelled his hair without fail until today. It lay in loose curls around his head. It was kind of sweet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiled at Tony, making a real effort to do so through a split lip and black eye. Honestly, he was pretty fucking daunting to behold, but you could tell he was trying not to be. He was trying to be normal and nice. Tony appreciated that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He approached and tapped his sheet-covered foot with the cassette. “I got you your music, kid. Although I don’t see why it’ll be of any use to you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a saint," Peter told him earnestly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Holding up okay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They took out my spleen. Look.” He pushed away the sheets and hiked up his hospital gown without preamble. He had boxer shorts on, thank God, although no undershirt, because they'd clearly done some dicking around where the swelling had been on his abdomen. "It ruptured. Eight stitches to get it out.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Christ. Spleen do anything important?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smirking, the kid pointed out, “Not really, I imagine, otherwise we’d know more about what it does.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a smart bastard.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He really was. Tony wanted him to know that and Peter looked like he did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks," he said. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was silence, but the kid looked like he wanted to say something, only he was being real flighty about it. He gathered the sheets around him again, fiddling with them. The wire ring was still on his finger. His hands were pale. Tony suddenly felt strange standing over him. Like the Grim Reaper or some other morbid fucker, marauding in the way morbid fuckers did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter looked up at him. "You didn’t… you didn’t tell anyone, did you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone had wanted to know everything, of course, but it had felt like sacrilege to talk shit about the kid behind his back while he was all laid up and in recovery like he was. And Tony could tell what Peter really meant by that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t have the balls to break it to the kid that everyone knew exactly what had been going on anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Course I didn’t." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was telling God's honest truth and he tried his best to make that clear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I’m an asshole but I’m not that bad.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not that bad at all." Peter quirked an eyebrow at him, then grew uneasy again. Speaking real soft as if he might offend Tony if he were louder, he went on, saying, "I’m really grateful. If everyone knew - I don’t want them thinking…” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was getting awkward again, so Tony fished out a half-forgotten gift from his pocket. That was half of the point of it, actually: it fit in a pocket; it was inconspicuous and wouldn't easily get confiscated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We all chipped in and got you something extra.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You did?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The way the kid beamed as Tony passed the notebook to him, you'd think he'd been given a million dollars or some shit. Something really meaningful. But it was a goddamn notebook and that was all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He flicked through the empty pages with reverence. “This is </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Thank you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Knew it’d make your nerdy face light up.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter laughed. “You guys are getting soft.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you know it." Tony nudged him a little and finally sat his ass down on the edge of the mattress. "You’re getting all the benefits, you sly fucker.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I really am indebted to you, Tony." The kid got serious again. "For stepping in and keeping what went on to yourself.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Could you quit it with that? It’s not your apology to give. They’re a bunch of sick fucks who decided to single you out. That’s it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter sort of shrugged. He carded a hand through his hair, only making it frizzier.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"They’re getting transferred," Tony added. "Staff has to take notice when an inmate needs eight stitches.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At his words, Peter changed before his eyes, like some sort of miraculous metamorphosis, shrinking and expanding all at once until he looked at home in himself for the first time in years. He suddenly seemed to fit in himself just right. The Ravagers would no longer fuck him out of shape.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A nurse was on to Tony, ushering him away. He found that he didn't want to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks again, Tony," the kid was saying to him as he edged away. "You’re something else." He huffed out another laugh and waved his notebook at him. "I’ll write you a sonnet, how about that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid was full of laughs and smiles. He was a fucking fountain of them, marred as he was by injuries and other bad shit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No can do. I’m not a poetry man.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe an obituary?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck off, kid.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter smiled again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Anybody who's seen The Devil All The Time and wants to talk about it, I'd love to scream in a spoiler-free fashion with you in the comments!! (Be aware I'll be deleting comments with major spoilers to keep the comments section free from them.) If you'd like to talk spoilers, my tumblr is notaparty-trick and I assure you I'm very friendly :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>No news so far on whether I got a part in the play. LET ME BE IN THE PLAY PLS pray for me y'all<br/>ummmm so here we have it. a happier chapter i'd say! everyone does some Bonding, Peter has some Big Ideas, Tony is Confusion, all that good stuff. :D</p><p>Trigger warning for solitary confinement I guess??</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>“History ain’t so important when yer just trying to survive.”</p><p>“That’s actually when it’s most important.”</p><p>
  <em> --Patrick Ness, Chaos Walking </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that’s impossible, but it’s too bad anyway.</p><p>
  <em> --J.D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Time passed slowly yet quickly, like treacle and water all at once, and then it was the 10th of August 1955 and the kid became an adult. Tony got him a tall bottle of Smirnoff.</p><p>"Now you're legally permitted to crack open a cold one… happy birthday, kid." </p><p>He set it on the bleachers beside Peter, who made a quizzical face.</p><p>“Neat vodka?”</p><p>“You do know what alcohol is, right?”</p><p>“Screw you,” the kid laughed. “Yes.”</p><p>Tony sat down facing the kid and set his elbows on his trousers. Peter squinted across at him.</p><p>“Are you gonna drink this shit? Because if you’re only keeping it around to write poetry about it, I’m taking it back.”</p><p>“So I’m not allowed to write poetry about it?”</p><p>He was fucking with Tony just for the sake of it. Well, it was his birthday.</p><p>Tony humoured him. “What kind of poetry are you planning to write about the goddamn Smirnoff?”</p><p>“Poetry you won’t <em> believe,” </em>Peter said, looking up to the heavens, still fucking around with his dramatics. Tony would usually get tired of guys who fucked around with dramatics pretty soon, but not with the kid. It was just different. You knew he wasn’t trying to trip you up.</p><p>Most likely, he was trying to get you to smile.</p><p>Tony - why not? Tony smiled. The kid met his smile with a larger one.</p><p>“Are you planning on downing that all or should I bring the boys over?”</p><p>“Get them here. Contrary to popular belief, I know a little about alcohol, and I know this would knock me on my ass if it had the chance.”</p><p>“I can’t believe it. The boy has logic. Somewhere in there with all the fluffy poetry.” Tony twisted around and called for Rhodey then, nodding at the bottle and receiving a grin in response.</p><p>Predictably, the day was fucking scorching. August tore the moisture from the topsoil and left it gasping. The sun was a relentless motherfucker, but Tony liked it still. It didn’t apologise.</p><p>Steve and Bucky and Clint followed in Rhodey’s wake, eagerly hounding the booze. Predictable.</p><p>“Hey, be nice,” he called ahead of their arrival. “It’s for the kid because his balls finally dropped.”</p><p>The kid swiped at him. “Fuck you. It’s my birthday.”</p><p>“It’s everyone’s birthday now,” Bucky cut in.</p><p>Steve was out of the loop most always, and so he said, “It’s the kid’s birthday?”</p><p>“Yes, dumbfuck. Can you guess how old he’s supposed to be?”</p><p>“Shut up, Tony. I’m twenty-one.”</p><p>“There’s no way in hell you’re twenty-one,” Rhodey breezed.</p><p>The kid’s ears grew red. It was quite a sight. And yes, they all laughed at him.</p><p>“Just drink my fucking Smirnoff already and get outta here,” he muttered at them, and they laughed again. They let him have the first sip, watched as his face contorted.</p><p><em> “Shit. </em> This is something. You didn’t spike it, did you, Tony?”</p><p>“I’m an innocent man, kid. I wouldn’t ever do such a thing.”</p><p>But he hadn’t spiked it. It was just neat vodka. Neat vodka burned the throat like hellfire. It was a triumphant fire nevertheless, a <em> fuck you </em>to the world and its phony sobriety. Peter must have sensed this, because he tipped the bottle skywards and sealed his mouth around it.</p><p>Bucky whistled.</p><p>When the kid re-emerged from his swig, he croaked, <em> “This </em>is what I write poetry about.”</p><p>“Well, don’t blame me if Toomes busts your ass for hurling all over his shoes.”</p><p>“No, <em> please </em> hurl on those shoes,” Rhodey said. “They’re so polished you can see your own goddam face in them. He probably spends more time on them than his wife. Imagine the look on his face.”</p><p>Peter smirked and took another drink. Then he handed it back to Tony. Tony clenched his free fist and downed a mouthful of the vile, glorious stuff. The warmth came next, all in a rush. Fucking perfect.</p><p>He hoped the kid would write poetry about that feeling. What Tony knew of poetry was leaves and trees and love at first sight and other stupid shit that made <em> him </em> want to hurl. But the feeling of cheap Smirnoff incinerating his throat? The strange satisfaction of drinking with fellow cons? That would make some fucking good poetry, he thought.</p><p> </p><p>Although Tony was perpetually curious about the contents of the notebook he’d gifted the kid, Peter’s hackles would raise every time Tony so much as asked about what he wrote, so he didn’t push. They’d grown close, him and the kid. Closer than he had imagined he’d grow to anyone at the Raft. This mostly seemed to be because their smoking clocks had aligned through some fucking freak of nature or something, Tony didn’t know. They both went to smoke at the same time. It just happened. </p><p>And so it happened that they’d take their smoke breaks together in the courtyard and they’d get to talking. And somehow, Tony managed to befriend a kid he knew almost nothing about.</p><p> </p><p>They were smoking together again and the kid said, “I'm going to do something. If you do it with me, you'll probably be punished. Do you want to do it with me?”</p><p>Just as Tony was puzzling over what the hell that cryptic bullshit could mean, his mouth said, “Yes.”</p><p>He'd been in the hole. He'd been beneath Toomes' boot. He didn't much care anymore.</p><p>And thus began the adventure.</p><p>The kid took his sleeve and tugged him towards an open door in the main building. Tony’s Marlboro was knocked from his hand to the floor. He was ready to get real pissed off, but he could also tell that one of Peter’s big ideas was coming into fruition, and for a moment he warred between pointing out that the kid had been a prick and shutting his mouth. </p><p>He shut his mouth. Peter went through the door. He crept along the corridor and Tony followed with a frown glued to his face. Peter was being pretty goddamn strange, though he was known for being strange.</p><p>Tony’s curiosity won out. “There’d better be a real good reason why we’re skulking around here right now, kid.”</p><p>They turned, went through another set of doors, up a flight of stairs; the kid was silent through it all. He ducked into an office.</p><p>“Lock the door,” he told Tony, evidently distracted. <em> What the fuck? </em> </p><p>“Communication, Parker. What the hell are you doing?” </p><p>“You’ll see.”</p><p><em> You’ll see. </em> It was always <em> you’ll see </em> with Peter. Well, Tony didn’t fucking see. Until the kid unearthed the motherfucking Dinah Washington cassette tape from inside his shirt. Tony’s brain short-circuited.</p><p>“What the fuck?” </p><p>So, the kid didn’t style his shirt funny - he was lugging a tape around under there. For how long? What the hell kind of plan was this?</p><p>“I watched the doors for a few months.” Peter was breathless with excitement. “They leave it open for a couple minutes today and locking the door will buy us a little time.” </p><p>“Time to…?”</p><p>Of course, Tony received no verbal answer. Instead, he watched Peter insert the tape into the player, drag the desk microphone over to sit close by it, turn the microphone on, and play the cassette.</p><p>It made sense when the music began to play over the prison-wide speakers. Soaring strings and a chorus of vocals and a soft, easy beat. Then a voice: candid, almost like talking but marked by vibrato. The sort of thing you’d sit in an opera hall to listen to in the real world.</p><p>
  <em> This bitter earth </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Well, what a fruit it bears </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What good is love </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Mm, that no one shares </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And if my life is like the dust </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Ooh, that hides the glow of a rose </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What good am I </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Heaven only knows </em>
</p><p>Peter looked back at Tony and must have seen the grin on his face. There was something about the song - well, Tony didn’t fucking know. But it made him think of the ballroom where he’d first seen Faith’s skirt cutting the air to shreds and asked her to dance. When things had been unshattered, untouched. It was good, that was for certain.</p><p>There were maybe a hundred cons outside. Tony and Peter watched them stop and listen. Just listen. When you just focused on the music, it took you away so you weren’t at the Raft any more, so you were anywhere you wanted to be.</p><p>
  <em> Lord, this bitter earth </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yes, can be so cold </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Today you're young </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Too soon you're old </em>
</p><p>A rattling of the door handle. The guards had come for them.</p><p>Looking at Tony, Peter smiled a little and said, “I missed music.”</p><p>“Open the fucking door! This isn’t a joke!”</p><p>They stood and watched the guards throw themselves at the door. They were enjoying the music.</p><p>
  <em> But while a voice within me cries </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I'm sure someone may answer my call </em>
</p><p>Toomes shattered the glass of the office door and climbed in like a fucking dork. Neither he nor Peter did much; the music had them under its spell. Toomes pinned Peter’s arms behind his back. Schultz was coming for Tony.</p><p>“A week in the hole for you both. I hope you’re happy, shitheads.”</p><p>Tony looked over at Peter and Peter looked at him. The kid’s hair was all in his eyes. He had a glow around him, like the music had drawn light to him. Tony thought that he felt a little of that glow too. It was hard to tell - it had been nineteen years now. But he thought so.</p><p>
  <em> And this bitter earth </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Ooh, may not, oh, be so bitter after all… </em>
</p><p> </p><p>They were shut up in the hole and that was that. It wasn’t like either of them had been expecting anything else. But Tony remembered that the kid had never been in isolation before. Somehow, the son of a bitch had kept away from it for three whole years. Now, though, he looked scared.</p><p>“It’s nothing,” he called to the kid as they were dragged back down the stairs, back through the doors, back along the corridor. “It’s really nothing at all. Stick something in your head and think real hard about it. You’ll be dandy. Maybe dream about that imaginary wife of yours.”</p><p>There was no reply.</p><p>“Well, goddamn, kid. You’re gonna be no fun as a solitary buddy.”</p><p>Maybe Peter would have spoken then, but they had reached the rows of heavy-duty doors. The guards threw them through these doors and they were parted from one another. </p><p>Darkness was everywhere. This was solitary confinement. It was almost like an old friend. A fucking awful friend, but Tony supposed awful had become tolerable to him. </p><p>The darkness was a ten-tonne weight. The silence was oppressive. </p><p>It was that way for the rest of time. </p><p>Twelve hours later, light came. He was given lunch, maybe dinner, on a tray. Then darkness again. This time it was stamped by small sparks of light. The patterns were entrancing. </p><p>He wondered what to think about, tried to settle on nothing at all, then found that everything spilled out of the nothing like vomit onto a nice shirt. Tony had gotten wasted the night he first met Faith and vomited on her shoes. She’d been real nice about it, actually. She’d given him her handkerchief. He always wondered where she kept it, where amid the folds of her dress. They hadn’t even hooked up that night; they’d just walked. She seemed to him like a yellow tablecloth. Somehow, she was bright. There wasn’t a stain on her. </p><p>But they had been eighteen and sweet and full of life that was wasted on cigarettes and beer and dusty house corners and empty sides of the bed and something in strangers’ pants that was more tempting than what Tony had to offer. </p><p>Peter had been eighteen, too. Eighteen was fucking young. Eighteen was tender and awkward. Eighteen was a yellow tablecloth. The kid’s tablecloth was red as blood, hung over the same table the Ravagers had pinned him against. How many times? How many years?</p><p>Tony would have killed for a cigarette. A good Marlboro. A Camel. Even a damn Kent. His throat was parched, craving the smoke.</p><p>There were fourteen meals. Two meals a day. That meant seven days. On the seventh, the light came and stayed and made his eyes slam shut.</p><p>“Your sentence is over,” came the voice of a guard who sounded far too goddamn boring for Tony to identify. What a welcome back. <em> Your sentence is over. </em> Christ.</p><p>When you were pulled out of the hole, you suddenly realised that you didn’t fit in the world any more. You stank like a fucking shitbag and your beard had grown in and something was wrong with the entire way you worked. You felt like an old-timey train shifting into gear.</p><p>The kid came out of his own cell and Tony had almost forgotten he’d been a wall away from him the whole week. The sunlight that had been all over him while he played the music had been leached away somehow. He looked small. Really small, like he’d shrunk. Like a child.</p><p>“Popped your isolation cherry, kid. How does it feel?” </p><p>“I don’t know,” said the kid quietly.</p><p>“It’ll wear off. Do you think they’ll have talked about us outside?” </p><p>Peter hadn’t looked up yet, hadn’t looked at him. For a moment, Tony boiled over with rage.</p><p>“I bet they have,” he added anyway. Peter nodded a little. Or maybe it was coincidental. Maybe Tony just wished he’d fucking do something.</p><p>They were taken back to the cafeteria and the boys were all there eating. As they crossed the threshold, Peter finally looked at him. “I’ve got lots of poetry to write,” he said. There was a little light in his eyes.</p><p>“Get through the paparazzi and you’ll have all of tonight to write it.”</p><p>And it really did feel like they’d become famous. Rhodey clapped them both on the back as they squeezed in side by side in the available space. </p><p>“Maestro!” Clint cried.</p><p>Tony grinned.</p><p>Still shoveling food into his mouth, Bucky said, “What a power move. Fucking A.”</p><p>“You’ve become legends, fellas,” Steve told them.</p><p>Rhodey was candid as always: “Couldn’t you have at least played some Chuck Berry or something? The Everly Brothers? What even was that song?”</p><p>“Dinah Washington,” the kid told them defensively. Seeing the boys’ appreciation had brought him back to life a little.</p><p>Leaning back from a neighbouring bench, Sam Wilson mocked the kid. “Dinah who?” </p><p>He was a bitch sometimes, but he wasn’t bad. </p><p>Peter wasn’t phased anyway. He was pretty much never phased. “C’mon, Dinah Washington. Of course none of you have heard of her. You’re fucking uncultured, that’s what you are.”</p><p>“Screw you, kid.”</p><p>“Yeah, what happened to respecting your elders?” Steve put on his best stern father expression. He was like one of those carvings or statues of presidents when he did it. It was brilliant.</p><p>“Well, did you like the music or not?” the kid pointed to his stubble. “I grew this out for it. Don’t think I enjoyed it.”</p><p>“Yeah, we liked it. It was fucking glorious.”</p><p>Ben was nearby, and he said, “First piece of music I’ve heard in fifty years, I think.”</p><p>That sobered up the boys. It made you think, <em> fuck. </em> It made you think that could just as easily be you. You blink and you’ve been at the Raft your whole goddamn life.</p><p>“Kid’s first stint in solitary,” Tony decided to mention. Give the kid some credit for that shit, right?</p><p>“Right,” said the boys. “That’s rough. Gotta be hard. Yeah.”</p><p>Wrinkling his nose at the half-hearted consolation, Peter said, “It was alright. I had Dinah singing in my head most of the time.”</p><p>“Dinah who?” Sam said again. This was a perfect example of why Tony didn’t usually hang out with him. </p><p>“You’re an idiot, Sam,” the kid told him mildly.</p><p>And that was that. But there was a new lightness to the cafeteria that day, a tune in the conversation, a tune that sounded like <em> this bitter earth may not be so bitter after all. </em></p><p> </p><p>Stane wasn’t done with him or Peter by a long shot.</p><p>He sat them down and gave them a stern talking-to like they were miscreant kids and he the principal at a high school. That was fine. They were reckless. They couldn’t afford to break rules like that. Sure. That was the kind of talk that told you nothing would really be done. But then Obadiah caught Tony’s eye and asked the kid, just the kid, to leave, and Tony wondered if something else was about to happen.</p><p>The moment Peter was out of the room, something changed.</p><p>“Stark, I am a reasonable man, but this?”</p><p>Tony didn’t know whether he was supposed to have something to say about that. </p><p>Stane straightened his suit jacket. He had this way of leering down at people. Tony didn’t want to say it, but it was unsettling.</p><p>“You know that you have risen to a place of high esteem within the ranks of this institution.”</p><p>Bullshit. He ran money scams. That was it.</p><p>“You know, too, that this position comes with the expectation of <em> trust. </em>I trusted you to do your job and to keep in line. Two simple things. Or am I misunderstanding something?”</p><p>“No, sir,” said Tony, feeling like a fucking moron saying it.</p><p>“Okay. Thank you for understanding. God. You know, I didn’t ask for this to be my job. Did you think that I asked for this job all my life?”</p><p>“No, sir.”</p><p>Obadiah was bald. Tony hoped he’d never end up like him. He spoke this fancy bullshit, but with the way he said the words you could tell he was just dying to swear a blue streak at you instead.</p><p>“I think we have somewhat of a mutual understanding about that. Neither of us wanted to end up here, but here we are.”</p><p>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>“Now, I’m trying to make it as easy as possible for us to be here. I expect you to use your skills for the benefit of this institution, don’t I?” He didn’t even wait for a <em> yes, sir </em> before ploughing on, eyes narrowed. “You do your job, you help me out, I help you out. Everyone’s happy. Everything’s easy.”</p><p>Fucking hell. Tony wished he hadn’t gotten himself into this. He wished he’d never given advice on Schultz’s tax returns years ago. He wished to be fucking left alone.</p><p>Stane darkened suddenly. He planted his hands on the desk. “You know what I could do to keep you in line, Stark.”</p><p>Tony hated that his stupid heart started to pound at that. He tried, he tried, he tried not to care about it. He didn’t care anymore.</p><p>“You and that Parker kid, you’re thick as thieves, aren’t you? Planning this little act of rebellion together?”</p><p>Now Stane was taking an unexpected turn.</p><p>“It’s nice to have a friend, isn’t it? It would be a shame if he were - I don’t know - transferred. Especially after you cleared up the band of people who gave him a hard time here. Very chivalrous of you. He seems pretty soft to me, you know. I can’t see him faring too well in a maximum-security institution.”</p><p>And - fuck, what the hell was happening? There was something - Tony’s throat was tight and he brought a hand up to it but nothing was there. Jesus. Something was happening. Tony hadn’t felt this out of order in a long time.</p><p>The memory of the kid’s pleading eyes was overriding his mind.</p><p>There was nothing he wanted to say except <em> the kid isn’t fucking soft. </em></p><p>Obadiah smiled at him as if he’d gotten exactly what he wanted from Tony. “Think on it. Remember our agreement. I think you’d like to keep it. Wouldn’t you?”</p><p>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>God, Stane was getting off on every <em> yes, sir </em>and it was too fucking obvious. He left Tony with a stack of papers to fuck with and a dirty set of his clothes to put through the laundry, as if Tony was some kind of goddamn scullery maid.</p><p>Tony couldn’t stop getting distracted. It took him hours to get through the bills. What he was doing felt real important all of a sudden, and not in a good way. He wasn’t just risking himself anymore. Everything was big and dark and too damn messy.</p><p> </p><p>Peter handed him a roll of paper in the courtyard.</p><p>Knowing not to ask, Tony let it unfurl in his grip and out came Rita Hayworth, looking a million bucks in a nightdress with some lace or some pretty shit over it, smiling out at Tony like she was waiting for him to come home. Lord Almighty. Tony was going to enjoy himself that night.</p><p>He blew out smoke from the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “Oh, kid. You've outdone yourself. Look at her.”</p><p>The kid wasn’t looking at her. That was pretty predictable. He seemed oblivious to the charms of pretty girls. Maybe this was why he didn’t talk about his mysterious wife. But he was looking at Tony, and he was looking at him like Tony’s reaction had just made his motherfucking day. </p><p>“How’d you know?”</p><p>Today was Tony’s 20th anniversary. He’d been at the Raft for two decades. He didn’t like to think about it much. Presents were always nice, though.</p><p>“Rhodey told me,” Peter said.</p><p>“Well, thanks.” </p><p>“Better appreciate it. I had to figure out another way of getting her in, otherwise it wouldn’t have been a surprise.” The kid actually raised his eyebrows then, like the protagonist of a shitty spy flick. Tony got a real kick out of that.</p><p>“Oh God, tell me you didn’t sell anything important,” he joked.</p><p>But then Peter said, deadly serious, “I can do without a kidney.”</p><p>Tony paused.</p><p>The kid laughed uproariously at him. “No, I’m fucking with you!”</p><p>“Well, fuck you.” Tony gave him a shove with his shoulder for good measure.</p><p>Peter shook his head at him. “Fuck you too, old man.”</p><p>Tony smiled. He took a long drag of his smoke. It was a Camel. Pretty good.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The song is This Bitter Earth by Dinah Washington!<br/>Disclaimers:<br/>- the author has never drank neat vodka, or any vodka, or any more than a sip of any alcohol for that matter, and as such doesn't know if that's what neat vodka is like<br/>- the author quoted chaos walking at the start of the chapter, how very meta hehe<br/>- the author is not yet twenty-one and hopes peter will seem realistically,,, older than sixteen which is how old i am<br/>- the author knows that the subject matter she, as a sixteen-year-old approaches, is kind of very disturbing, but shush it makes for good drama<br/>- the author admits that dinah washington's album including 'this bitter earth' was not released until 1963 but doesn't care enough to make it correct because this bitter earth is too good of a song to pass up<br/>- the author loves and respects sam wilson as a character and wrote his one-dimensional depiction in this chapter because there are too many m e n in this work already and i didn't wanna have to introduce another one but i also wanted to make it seem like there were more than like six guys in this prison okay???<br/>- the author knows so much more about which cigarette brands were around in the 1950s than she did before. she could make some sort of niche project about it. maybe a phd<br/>- oh and also the author based peter's 50s look entirely off of arvin russell in the devil all the time and you'll see that more and more as this fic progresses and the author does NOT apologise because it's a great look</p><p>My tumblr: notaparty-trick</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Posting this a day early because I'm gonna be busy tomorrow!<br/>Guys guys guys!!!!!! I got into the school play!!! I'm playing a female version of Leonato which is awesome and a really good part so I'm thrilled!!! I'm also going to do a short film in about two week's time and i'm about to start rehearsals for another play, which makes three acting projects at once! YEE! HAW! BABY!!!<br/>With that happy boast aside, I hope you folks all enjoy this much-longer-and-more-indulgent-than-usual chapter :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even death by violence.</p><p>
  <em> --John Knowles, A Separate Peace </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>That goddamn kid wrote two letters a week to the funding board and in the fall of 1957 he got a response: a cheque for a thousand dollars to expand the library. A thousand dollars would pay for renovating the whole damn room. The power of being fucking irritating hadn’t died, Tony guessed.</p><p>And under the care of one diligent kid, that library flourished.</p><p>First, he recruited Tony, Rhodey, Ben, Steve, Bucky, Clint, Sam, and anyone he could buy with smokes or poetry or the prospect of actually doing something worthwhile with their free time, until he had a little team. Then he set them to work like some kind of official project manager, painting walls, sweeping away old dust, scrubbing the windows, waxing the floor, assembling sets of chairs and tables and dark oak bookshelves and lamps. </p><p>Bucky had dicked around with buildings some back before he was a bum, so he naturally began to advise the kid, to make sense of the scribbled floor plan in his notebook. Tony had never seen him so purposeful about getting something done. He started saying shit like <em> good job, boys </em> and <em> that looks sharp </em>and Tony didn’t even mind because he looked so damn pleased while he said it. It was certainly a nice departure from the digs he’d usually direct at just about anyone who disagreed with him, and mostly Tony. The man was alright when his frown lifted a little.  He stuck a pencil behind his ear and tied back his long hair and nodded down at the drawing Peter had put together in three minutes as if it was a proper piece of architectural shit. </p><p>Everyone got in a good mood at some point after that, following the lead of Peter and his zeal. The sun streamed through the windows once they’d cleared them from cobwebs. It made it so the room looked real smart. Bright and clean and calm.</p><p>Steve, Steve underwent a whole fucking transformation. It made you wonder if he hadn’t been a real nice guy before the Raft. He became the everyman, helping people without partners put furniture into place, things like that which proved pretty helpful. He also lost about a decade of age somehow. He swept an assembled bookshelf right out of Tony and Rhodey’s hands and just fucking carried it himself.</p><p>“Well, goddamn,” was all Rhodey said. </p><p>Tony decided to have a cigarette break right then and there.</p><p>He had nothing but Pall Malls that day, but they were smokes, so they were alright. He went over to Peter and handed one to him; without even looking, the kid plucked it out of Tony’s hand.</p><p>“That always unnerves me.”</p><p>“They’re easy to locate by smell.”</p><p>“I would disagree.”</p><p>“Well, I have an adept sense of smell.”</p><p>“And I have an adept sense for your bullshit.”</p><p>“I’m wounded,” said the kid distractedly.</p><p>“Is it going to plan?”</p><p>Peter cupped a hand around the cigarette and lit it in one go. Then he grinned at himself as if that was the best thing he’d done all day.</p><p>“Uh,” he said eventually, “You know what? I’ve got no damn idea.”</p><p>“What about the diagram?”</p><p>“It’s kind of bullshit.”</p><p>Tony snorted. “Okay.”</p><p>“Well, do you think it looks alright?”</p><p>Looking at the new room, Tony saw hope in it. It wasn’t bad at all. He smiled around his Pall Mall.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s alright.”</p><p>“You worked with money before here, didn’t you?”</p><p>“Uh-huh. Banker. I was pretty good, too.”</p><p>“I hear you were really good,” Peter remarked, blowing out a trail of smoke to his side. “Do bankers read books?”</p><p>The kid talked funny and it gave Tony no end of amusement.</p><p>“Yes. We too are human.”</p><p>“Banking books? Or real books?”</p><p>“Banking books are real books, you ass.” </p><p>And then he found himself reaching over to mess up the kid’s hair and Peter took his smoke between his fingers and ducked away and laughed all at the same time. Their two smoke clouds collided. Tony laughed languidly.</p><p>Rhodey gave him a look as he passed by with a pot of paint. It was very clearly a <em> what are you doing? </em>look. Tony just shrugged at him.</p><p>He resumed his thread of conversation with the kid, who had smoothed his hair back into place at lightning speed: “I read literature, if that’s what you were asking.”</p><p>“I want to know what your favourites are, then. I can ask specifically for them.”</p><p>“That’s good of you. Uh.” His mind got fucked. “Shit. Hard to remember, you know?”</p><p>The kid didn’t say anything, and it hit Tony. All the years. All the shit he used to love and forgot about.</p><p>“The Count of Monte Cristo’s pretty good,” he quipped eventually, knowing the kid was maybe the only motherfucker around who would understand what he really meant.</p><p>Peter hummed at him. His eyes smiled a little. “Yeah. I’ll see if I can get that. The boys would get a kick out of it, I bet.”</p><p>“If any of them can still read.”</p><p>The kid widened his eyes at Tony, fighting down a grin.</p><p>“Okay, fuck off now,” he said with a tilt of his head, “Smoke break’s over. You’re supposed to be working.”</p><p>Tony’s smile grew. He gestured at the diagram. “And I see you’re working your ass off over here.”</p><p>“Well, cool it, old man. I’ll be there in a second. I’ll do some heavy lifting and spare your back, huh?”</p><p>“Fuck you.”</p><p>“Fuck you too,” Peter called lightly after him as he went to help Rhodey with painting.</p><p>The moment he was at the wall, Rhodey sent an eyebrow far up into the skin of his forehead.</p><p>“You’re acting like he’s your long-lost son,” he told Tony blandly.</p><p>This was the way Rhodey talked. He just said whatever the fuck was on his mind and it was like being caught in gunfire. He was wise, though. Tony mostly liked his lack of filter. Not today.</p><p>“Piss off, Rhodey.”</p><p>“Tones.”</p><p>“I’m not interested in your truth bombs today. He’s a good kid. Or do you not agree?”</p><p>“He’s a good kid.”</p><p>“Okay,” Tony said harshly. He wanted that to be the end of the conversation.</p><p>Rhodey struck a line of paint along the wall, an off-white streak that separated them.</p><p> </p><p>In the next few weeks, hundreds of books came in from the outside world, from donation boxes and book clubs and charity organisations, and they were messages in bottles. They were things people from the outside world owned. They were a sign that there was somewhere beyond the chain-link fence.</p><p>Peter got all strange around the books and started smelling the old ones until he was teased enough to quit it. He really glowed when those books were brought in. </p><p>Tony liked books well enough. They were paper and ink bound together and that was alright. But the kid picked up every volume like he knew it. He was friends with every goddamn book that got brought in. Watching him sort the books was like watching a kid come home to their parents after summer camp a million times in a row. Peter was a book nerd, of course. Nobody had the heart to give him much shit about it, though. Apart from the smelling. They had to intervene when it came to the smelling. </p><p>Rhodey, in fact, shared his sentiment: while he didn’t smell the books, he got really into organising them by genre and alphabetizing them and everything.</p><p>“The Count of Monte Cristo?” Clint said, lifting the heavy novel into view.</p><p>Tony’s mouth lifted.</p><p>“By... Alexander Dumbass. Alexander Dumbass?”</p><p>Rhodey found this uproariously funny.</p><p>“Dumas,” Peter corrected him kindly, though not without a laugh. “Alexandre Dumas.”</p><p>“What’s it about?”</p><p>“There’s this fancy guy, Edmond Dantès, and he’s wrongly imprisoned and escapes. He gets revenge on the guys that framed him after, too.”</p><p>Tony spoke in a flow that he hardly realised left his mouth. It was one of those things where you think you know fuck-all about the thing, but suddenly something lifts and there’s something you didn’t even know you knew.</p><p>“I have it, too,” Steve puzzled, “But it’s - <em> Le Comte de Monte-Christo? </em> Look at that shitty publishing.”</p><p>“No, it’s French,” Tony said, his brain doing that thing again.</p><p>Tony remembers French. He remembers <em> ma mère et mon père </em> with his tutor and <em> s’il vous plaît </em> at the dinner table and a <em> bravo! </em> from his mother when he got his mouth round the strange <em> r </em> . He remembers telling Faith <em> je t’aime </em> and getting a mystified look in response and being glad she didn’t understand. He remembers the bitter taste of <em> putain </em> and <em> fils de pute </em> and <em> casse-toi </em>under his breath.</p><p>“Hey, let me read it,” he said and took the book from Steve. It was dusty and felt like home. Thumbing it open to a random page, he scanned the words, speaking them under his breath.</p><p>
  <em> On se rappelle que l’abbé Busoni était resté seul avec Noirlier dans la chambre mortuaire, et que c’etaient le viellard et le pretre qui s’etaient constitues les gardiens du corps de la jeune fille. </em>
</p><p>The french was doing some funny shit to him, like it had overturned his heart so the shiny side was up rather than the rusty one.</p><p>Peter had come up to him over his shoulder. “I always wanted to learn French.”</p><p>“I could teach you a little.”</p><p>“That would be amazing.” He reached forward to run a pinky finger over a letter. “What’s the mark over it?”</p><p>“An accent.”</p><p>
  <em> “Tony, pay attention. You keep getting them the wrong way around. Usually, the rule is that ‘ay' sounds go with an acute accent and ‘eh’ sounds will have a grave accent, but like English, French isn’t completely rule-based. You have to learn the irregularities too.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Irregularities?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “The things that stick out. That don’t fit the rule. The special exceptions.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Once the library was all done up and looked a good deal nicer than any other room in the Raft, Bucky got the idea of fashioning a plaque to hang over the door. <em> Fuck it, </em> they mostly said. <em> Let’s do it. </em></p><p>Peter got to name the place, of course.</p><p>“Monroe,” he said quietly.</p><p>“Monroe?”</p><p>“Yeah, the Monroe Library. That sounds good.”</p><p>“Who’s Monroe?”</p><p>“He was… just a good friend of mine. He would’ve liked to see this.”</p><p>They carved out <em> Monroe </em>and there it was, the newly minted Monroe Library, and it looked pretty fucking incredible.</p><p> </p><p>The general prison population was allowed in. It was like entering a safe haven when you got inside. There were tall, clean windows and clusters of chairs around small tables with lamps on them and the books lined the shelves neatly. They were free to check out and return without permission.</p><p>“You’ve done a damn good job, son,” Ben told the kid when he laid eyes on the place. He sounded a little choked up. He carried on taking that cart of books around in the evening, mostly out of habit, but it didn’t bother Tony. Whether he’d take out a book or not, he’d talk to Ben.</p><p>The library became the place Tony and Peter would hang around whenever they were permitted. The kid was over the moon to have an actual chair and table to sit and write at. He’d write and write and write and sometimes his hand would cramp up and stop working and Tony would uncurl his fingers for him. Tony made his way through <em> Le Comte de Monte Cristo </em> while Peter stuck napkin shards in poetry volumes so he could look at a million goddamn poems at once.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky ran out to him and Rhodey as they enjoyed the sun in the courtyard.</p><p>All he told them was, “It’s Ben. Ben and the kid. You’ve got to come.”</p><p>They went in and up the stairs and Bucky led them through the door of the library. And it was Ben. Ben with a knife. Ben with a knife in his hand and Peter in a headlock.</p><p>“Come on, Ben, knock it off. Calm the fuck down,” Steve was yelling, looking far from calm himself. </p><p>Bucky looked to Tony as if he was the one who knew what to do, as if he was the goddamn Messiah or something. “He was all fine, then out came the knife. I don’t know what happened.” </p><p>Tony could describe the whole situation as a clusterfuck. The knife was drawing beads of blood from the kid’s neck, but he didn’t seem to notice at all. He was tense but still.</p><p>Ben yelled back at him. “Don’t you step any closer! I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna cut his throat--”</p><p>“Uncle Ben,” the kid cut in breathlessly. “You’re not gonna, Uncle Ben. You’re not gonna do anything to me because I’m your friend, isn’t that right? I’m your friend. And you’re a good man.” </p><p>“I got no choice.” </p><p>Nobody was doing anything but standing there and watching all hell break loose. This wasn’t Ben. Ben was quiet and kind and Ben loved the kid like it was nobody’s goddamn business. Ben would never stick a knife to Peter’s throat. But here he was. Shit happened.</p><p>Tony tried to get everyone to stop yelling, motioning for them to back away.</p><p>“What are <em> you </em> gonna do, Stark?” Steve said, still fucking yelling.</p><p>“Try,” Tony told him.</p><p>Now there was blood on Peter’s shirt collar - not enough to worry Tony any more than he already was, but enough to sober them all. The kid looked calmer than Tony would expect anyone with the point of a knife in their neck to be.</p><p> “You’ve got plenty of choice,” Tony said to Ben. He didn’t yell but he said it real clear, as if that would make the words soak more effectively into his brain. “You’ve got the choice of putting that knife down.” </p><p>Ben tensed his arm around the kid; the kid didn’t move a muscle, just looking out at Tony urgently. Ben’s face was red. </p><p>“They’re gonna make me leave,” Ben grit out. </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“His parole’s come through.” Bucky didn’t even look at Tony as he said it, like it wasn’t a fucking important piece of information. </p><p>“Oh, shit,” he heard Rhodey say behind him.</p><p>Parole. Ben was going to leave the Raft.</p><p>Tony had heard of this shit before. It was the thing every con was most scared of, getting so used to being inside the walls that going outside them becomes unthinkable. You go batshit. </p><p>The only way to stick around in prison if your parole comes through is to keep committing crimes.</p><p>Ben started backing away from them all. “Don’t look at me, goddamnit. I’m gonna do it.” </p><p>Peter shut his eyes. You could tell the knife was hurting him but he was trying to pay it no mind. “Please put the knife down, Uncle Ben. This isn’t you.” </p><p>Ben didn’t say anything. He pressed the blade a little deeper. Everyone winced.</p><p>Tony’s mouth was stuck open but the kid kept going. “I know you don’t wanna hurt me, Ben,” he gasped.</p><p>Nothing was fucking working. For a moment, Tony wondered if he was about to see Peter Parker’s life end right then and there.</p><p>“Look at him, Ben,” he said at last, “Look at the kid. He’s bleeding.” </p><p>Ben did. Peter’s neck was pale and crimson. His eyes were still shut as Ben pulled out the tip of the knife and began to loosen. Thank fucking God.</p><p>It was similar to a collapse, the way Ben threw down the knife. He shoved Peter away and he shuddered and he sunk into a chair. It was fucking awful.</p><p>“I have to stay here,” he started sobbing. He’d covered his face with his hands. “I don’t belong out there. I have to stay.”</p><p>Before Tony could approach Ben, Peter whirled right round and put his hands on Ben’s shoulders and then knelt at his feet in a way that sort of just made everything more heartbreaking. There was the trail of blood still going down his neck, but he was just looking at Ben like them all. </p><p>Peter was quiet as he spoke, quiet but insistent. Everybody knew to stay back for a little while. “Hey, you’re gonna be alright. What’s the best thing you remember from before you were here? There’s gotta be something you enjoyed.” </p><p>Taking his face out of his hands for a moment, Ben watched the kid with red eyes. Then he said, “Going dancing.” </p><p>“See? There it is. Dancing is swell. Dancing’s the thing.” Tony could see Peter’s smile and it was sad as anything, like he was so depressed his mouth was turning the wrong way. </p><p>“Now there’s something for you to live for, huh?” he went on. He was talking fast but you remembered everything he said. “You’re going out into the 50s, and I don’t know if you know, but the 50s are fun as hell. The cars, the clothes, the music, the <em> books </em> - Uncle Ben, you promise me when you get out there that you get yourself some fucking good books, okay?”</p><p>Ben laughed reluctantly. Peter laughed back and it broke in his throat. </p><p>“That’s what you have to live for. The good shit. The hope. The love. You get out there, and you find something you love, and you pursue it. Pursue the hell out of it. And then you’re gonna be fine, I know it.”</p><p>What was so powerful about his words, Tony couldn’t tell, and he doubted anyone else in the room could, but there was just something about them.</p><p>Ben started up crying again. “I’m so sorry, Peter.” </p><p>“It’s nothing at all. See?” The kid scrubbed away the blood trail with the palm of his hand, not even looking at it. “I’m just dandy.” He shifted then. His face fragmented and he got quieter. Tony wondered if he should have listened to what he said next. It felt hauntingly personal.</p><p>“Hey, this is me telling you to live for me. You can’t tell me you will and then go back on it. Live for me, Ben.” </p><p>Ben swallowed. When he looked down at Peter, facing God knows how long in the Raft, he might have been thinking the same thing as everyone else there in the library.</p><p>“Say you’ll do it,” Peter said, real quiet but sort of harsh too. He shook Ben’s arm a little. You might almost think he was angry. Angry at the motherfucking world. Well, he had every right to be. </p><p>“I will, son.”</p><p>“Don’t you dare waste this chance.” </p><p>“I’ll try my best.”</p><p>“That’s all I’m asking.”</p><p>They both deflated then, the moment losing its intensity but none of its melancholy. </p><p>“I guess this is goodbye, then?” Peter said hesitantly, and then Ben started up crying again. Poor bastard.</p><p> </p><p>What would happen most of the time with guys who’d been in the Raft for long enough was that they’d gotten so good at pretending prison was the only life that existed that they couldn’t handle life outside it. Their parole came through after thirty, forty, fifty years, and they got put up in a shitty hotel room, stuck bagging groceries at the local convenience store. That was how it went. They got trapped in the loop. The routine. Only there were people outside the routine in the real world, people who bought groceries for their families and came home every day to greet them.</p><p>What would happen most of the time was that they’d kill themselves.</p><p>They said solemn goodbyes to Ben and watched him go. He walked out of the Raft in a god-awful brown suit. Nobody knew what happened to him next.</p><p> </p><p>It was dark when the last of the inmates finally cleared out of the library and just Tony and the kid were left.</p><p>Peter scribbled something, back hunched to make out his writing in the lamplight, then stopped. Tony was halfway through The Catcher in the Rye. What a fucking brilliant book. He hadn’t known books like The Catcher in the Rye could even exist. He was in a pretty damn good mood, making his steady way through a pack of Luckies and reading his goddamn book. He felt close to a free man.</p><p>The kid was up in a flash. He went over to the far bookshelves and left Tony with his open notebook. </p><p>That thing looked like shit. Bent in half where he folded it up extra small to keep it hidden. Juice and sauce all over it like a painting. Corners ripped off. That notebook had a soul.</p><p>Not even daring to turn it around, Tony just took a look at the open page, reading upside down.</p><p>
  <em> I want there to be a vacuum, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> A perfect orb of nothingness </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Where we will exist, suspended in an eternal kiss, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Like our mouths are suctioned to one another, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Like... </em>
</p><p>This was some shit. It was sort of sweet, the kid talking about true love like he was an expert. That’s what Tony thought, anyway. </p><p>He’d just flipped a few pages back and glimpsed something about a beach, something about <em> my starwalker, my endless ever-expanding galaxy, </em>but the book was snatched out of his hands.</p><p>“What the fuck is your problem?”</p><p>The amount of anger that was suddenly in the kid’s face was startling. His shoulders were up around his ears. </p><p>“I’m sorry. I was interested. We’ve known each other for years and I know nothing about you.” </p><p>“Doesn’t give you permission to start fucking rifling through my notebook.” </p><p>“Calm down, kid,” Tony said, spreading his arms. He couldn’t figure out what the fuck the problem was. “It’s a <em> notebook.”  </em></p><p>“It’s <em> my </em> goddamn notebook.” Peter’s face dropped in an instant then. “What did you see?” he demanded.</p><p>Tony kept on joking in the way he often did. “Some lovey-dovey shit. Is your imaginary girl actually real? Or is this just more playing pretend?”</p><p>“No. It’s nothing. Shut up.”</p><p>The kid ran a hand through his hair and started scooping up all his shit. So he was just going to abandon Tony all of a sudden. That kid was a flighty son of a bitch. And Tony still didn’t understand why he’d been yelled at.</p><p>“Jesus. Okay.” It was all he knew to say.</p><p>Before he left, Tony called out, “It was good.” </p><p>There wasn’t ever a response from Peter. He just booked it out of there.</p><p>Afterwards, Tony just sat there for a minute, thinking, <em> what the fuck? </em>He stubbed his Lucky and sighed. He was used to the kid’s mystifying ways, but rarely if ever did he see Peter angry. It wasn’t a good look on the kid. And over a motherfucking notebook?</p><p>What was obvious was that there was something inside it that Peter didn’t want anyone seeing, even Tony. It both intrigued Tony and pissed him off. The kid wasn’t bothered by hardly anything, not a knife being held to his throat, not bullying from the guards, not being bent over a fucking table and--</p><p>All Tony could think was that Peter knew nothing of real love. Love fucked you till you were sick and useless. Love drove you insane. Love made you disable car brakes.</p><p> </p><p>Lost in endless tax returns, Tony turned his gaze to the walls of the guard’s office he was sat in. There was a really wide vent there. It was held in place by screws.</p><p>Tony thought.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!! Do consider dropping a comment below, I thrive on lots and lots of praise :)<br/>If you'd like to snoop around on my Tumblr or say hi there, I'm notaparty-trick!<br/>And for those of you who are interested in the French translations:<br/>'Ma mere et mon pere' - my mother and my father<br/>'s'il vous plait' - please<br/>'bravo' - an expression that vaguely means 'well done!'<br/>'Je t'aime' - I love you<br/>'Putain' - usually means something along the lines of 'fuck'/'whore'<br/>'Fils de pute' - son of a bitch<br/>Casse-toi - roughly translates to 'fuck off'/'piss off'<br/>The passage from Le Comte de Monte-Christo roughly means: 'We remember that Father Busoni was alone with Noirlier in the funeral chamber, and that it was the old man and the priest who were the guardians of the young girl's body.' (I got that off google translate don't @ me fluent speakers)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's here!!! The chapter where hopefully your questions start to get answered!<br/>I have to do homework now lmao so I'll leave you folks to it :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>And I figure it out: how I was always dead, my ears ringing. </p><p>
  <em> --Cherry, Nico Walker </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>It's hard to live a good life. It seems like the devil don't ever let up.</p><p>
  <em> --Donald Ray Pollock, The Devil All the Time </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> April 1958 </em>
</p><p>Tony sat before the parole committee and got ready to reel off the same old bullshit he’d been spouting for twenty-two years. </p><p>
  <em> I feel that I have been fully rehabilitated. I’ve learned my lesson, that’s for sure. I’m a changed man. </em>
</p><p>There was a new man at the centre of the table. A woman was on his left. A real-life woman.</p><p>Tony went and sat in his chair, the guards behind him, the panel in front of him. The table the panel sat at was covered by a yellow tablecloth.</p><p>Something felt different. The light on Tony’s face, the open blinds stirring in the breeze, the parole committee looking at him. </p><p>“Anthony Edward Stark. Your files say you’ve served twenty-two years of a life sentence.”</p><p>Tony nodded.</p><p>“Do you feel that you have been rehabilitated?”</p><p>The room was silent yet it buzzed. </p><p>Tony wanted to do something. So he did.</p><p>He folded his arms and said to the man at the centre of the table, “You know, I’ve been asked that question twenty-two times and not once has my answer been thought to be satisfactory.”</p><p>The man frowned minutely. Then, sitting back himself, he said, “I suppose you have been.”</p><p>In Tony’s head are a million things. Mostly memories of himself, twenty-nine, still too young to know what the fuck to do with himself, hanging on to shit like dancing and girls he thought would be good to him and yellow tablecloths. The kid is in his mind too. Eighteen and cut up into a million pieces yet still with more soul than anyone else. </p><p><em> Yes, sir, </em> he’d be saying to this man. Tony is fucking sick of <em> yes, sir. </em></p><p>“Well, what do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? Because, goddamn. I couldn’t be more sorry if I tried. I can’t sleep with how sorry I am. If I could do one thing, it’d be to go back to myself and tell that kid to <em> wake up. </em>But I can’t. I’m stuck with this, stuck being a con who committed murder and manslaughter. Have I been rehabilitated? I don’t have a fucking clue. Frankly, I don’t know why you’d ask the con himself.”</p><p>
  <em> “You get out there, and you find something you love, and you pursue it. Pursue the hell out of it. And then you’re gonna be fine, I know it.” </em>
</p><p>That’s what Tony was thinking of. He thought about Ben, and Jelly-legs, and Beck, and Larry, and Peter. Peter who was all love.</p><p>“You know what, though? I’ve learnt a lot. Maybe I’d have learnt this same shit inside or outside the walls, but I’ve learnt about love. I’ve learnt about going the distance for your friends. I’ve learnt about giving people a chance. For the longest time, I thought that I had to wait to find people who’d do that for me before I’d return it. But I know now that the best person to be is someone who does all that without asking for it in return. And that can be fucking hard, and I know that too. But it also means that other people will start loving you back without even hardly trying. If you do bad shit, it just makes other people do more bad shit. The same thing goes for good shit. Other people will want to do good shit with you. That is what I’ve learnt during my time here, and if that fits the bill of rehabilitation for you, that’s that, I guess.”</p><p>And then Tony shut his mouth and sat back and wondered where the fuck all that had come from. </p><p>It was a nice little speech, he supposed. It wasn’t like it mattered. Everyone had been paid off. He was certain. Almost.</p><p>It depressed Tony to think of that, and it was all inevitable anyway, so he listened to the quiet of the room until it was punctuated by the thump of a stamp.</p><p>The panel members were all looking at one another as if something had gone wrong. Tony peered at the sheet. It was upside down, but once he read it, the words got stuck on his brain, branded there.</p><p>ACCEPTED.</p><p>Lightning struck Tony.</p><p><em> Fuck, </em> he was thinking. There was no meaning to it, but <em> fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. </em></p><p>He didn’t know what to do.</p><p>A guard went over to the man before anybody could do anything and whispered something to him. Tony sat. The man sat and listened. He got pale. Then he nodded. The man grabbed the stamp, the other stamp.</p><p>He brought down the stamp over APPROVED. The new ink read REJECTED.</p><p>For a while, Tony couldn’t even understand it.</p><p>Then, he got up. He was enraged. He was full of lava. He stopped seeing. He made it to the table and he grabbed the man by his stupid fucking shirt collar and got an inch from his face and started yelling at him.</p><p>
  <em> You were paid off, weren’t you? You were fucking paid off. Motherfucker. You’ve got no goddamn right to ask me about fucking rehabilitation, pretend like you’re even listening, all you’re ever gonna do is fucking reject me because of fucking money because you’re a piece of shit, all of you are just fucking pieces of shit with no right to be doing this shit. You’re fucking trapping me. It’s my goddamn life. You fucking motherfucker.  </em>
</p><p>Everything was crackling like static so Tony didn’t know if he’d said any of that, but he knew that two guards were hitting him until he let go of the man and dragging him away and he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stand and shout forever. Maybe until his lungs burst. Until he folded inside out.</p><p>
  <em> Get your fucking ass in line, Stark. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You’re getting two weeks in the hole. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Bread and water. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You really thought you’d be able to get approved. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The panel is stupid, but not stupid enough to let you go. </em>
</p><p>The corridor. Rhodey was coming out of his own parole interview. He saw Tony and looked unsettled. But before, he’d looked like he was in a dream. Tony had seen that look. He knew at least five friends of his who’d had that look. He’d never seen them again. They had gone to the outside. They weren’t real.</p><p>Tony was still getting dragged along. He needed to talk to Rhodey.</p><p><em> Did you make parole?  </em>he asked.</p><p>
  <em> I did. What the hell is going on? </em>
</p><p>Tony just smiled at him. He remembered the hope a smile gave him years ago.</p><p>He looked at Rhodey more. He looked at him for as long as possible. Rhodey had light in him. <em> You have fun out there, alright? I'll see you around. </em></p><p>Rhodey could tell some shit had happened, it was clear. He didn’t ask about it. Tony liked Rhodey for that. </p><p>“See you around, Tones. Don't get fucked up in there.”</p><p>It was suddenly like the words were four inches deep in his brain. They hurt.</p><p> </p><p>And they turned a corner and the solitary cells were there and they wrestled him inside and they shut the door and nobody even said anything. The dark was there.</p><p>The dark scared Tony.</p><p> </p><p>Dark nights. Cell. Dark nights. The poster of Rita Hayworth always got fucked up in the shadows. He knew the kid hadn’t meant it to look like that so it wasn’t his fault. Nothing was his fault. It all just happened.</p><p>When Tony couldn’t sleep, there was nothing. He wanted someone to hold so badly. Holding people used to be his fucking thing. He thought so, anyway. How were you even supposed to remember after twenty-two years?</p><p>When he’d spent a week at the Raft, it had felt like the longest goddamn piece of time. Toomes had beaten him while he worked out in the fields and he’d beaten him for scalding his shirt on laundry shift. What he’d done was he’d made Tony bend over the ironing board and he’d pulled Tony’s pants down and he’d brought his baton down on Tony’s ass until he couldn’t stand anymore and everyone had watched. </p><p>Tony had been remembering as he pressed his face into the board that his father always used his belt. The baton hurt worse. What hurt most were the eyes on him.</p><p>Tony had gotten real dark after that beating. He’d wondered for a while if there were really shadows over him or if he was just dreaming them up. He’d seen everything upside down and backwards. Nothing made sense. He did the shit he was supposed to. It was just him, stranded on a backwards, upside-down island. He started thinking about how fucking good it would be to see nothing but black for the rest of eternity. He started wondering if he could do it by going off the roof. Smuggling a length of rope from the supply closet. That’s how he’d get to sleep at night. He’d set himself up with a nice suicide and everything would end as he lost consciousness.</p><p>It wasn’t the first time. He stopped sleeping when Faith stopped coming home. He’d lie and watch her side of the bed and his eyes would get dry and red and he’d wonder if willpower could bring her back. If he thought hard enough, would she hear him and return? Because he loved her. He sure as hell did. He thought. How are you supposed to know?</p><p>Maybe his dick loved her. Maybe that was all. Maybe the night dancing and walking and throwing up on her shoes had been one big fucking fluke. Maybe it was the sex and nothing else. But he wanted nothing more than to hold her, and she wouldn’t let him. </p><p>
  <em> Faith. You know we’ve been real close for a good long time. And I thought that it would be a good idea to get married. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Thank God. I thought you’d never ask me, idiot. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You know it’s pretty fucking hard to ask a woman to marry you?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I said yes, didn’t I? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Why couldn’t you have asked me instead? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Because that’s not the way things are, Tony. You might as well fuck another man. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Shut up. That’s fucking disgusting, Faith. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Mm-hm. I love you. </em>
</p><p>When he’d carried her over the threshold of their new apartment, it had been brown and damp and it was the best he could afford and he wanted to die. Faith’s nice shoes got ruined by mildew. They got ill in the damp air then hung out their clothes to dry inside and got ill again.</p><p><em> What do you want to fucking know, Tony? </em> <em><br/></em></p><p>
  <em>I</em>
  <em> want to know everything. And I want to know why you won’t tell me any of it. </em>
</p><p><em> Well, have you ever considered that it’s none of your motherfucking business? </em> <em><br/></em></p><p>
  <em>I’m your goddamn husband! Or does that mean shit to you? Would you prefer to ignore that because it suits you? So you can fucking sleep around? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Faith, don’t do it again. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What am I doing? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Fucking talk to me! </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Tony. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> No. Get back here and tell me the truth. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I don’t know what you want me to do. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You do! You’re not an idiot! Maybe I am, but you’re not! So talk to me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Tony, you’re scaring me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Fucking A, I’m scaring you. Okay. Fuck this. I’m taking a walk, and you’re sleeping on the couch. </em>
</p><p>He never wanted her to sleep on the couch. But he did. He didn’t know if it was worse to pretend like she was all his and know it was a lie or to give it up entirely.</p><p>Tony felt guilt like a hole in his stomach.</p><p>He got a call from a cop. <em> Your wife is deceased, </em> he said.</p><p>
  <em> What wife? </em>
</p><p>There was something Tony had never gotten round to telling himself. He didn’t know why.</p><p>When they cut Faith open and found the kid in her, it was a month old. Tony hadn’t slept with Faith in six months. </p><p>It didn’t even matter. It was a kid that had gotten mixed up in the awful shit Tony had done. It was a kid. It was Tony’s kid. He wanted a kid who he’d carry on his shoulders. </p><p>
  <em> Bend over, Tony. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He just made a mistake. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And he needs to learn from that mistake. Boys don’t fucking behave in that way. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m sorry, father. </em>
</p><p>He’d just wanted to save the kid.</p><p>The kid who smoked fucking Pall Malls. Who didn’t have a hat. Who had skinned-at-the-knees jeans. Who got right to the bottom of you with one look. Who’d lost eighteen, who’d had his time of yellow tablecloths taken away. </p><p>Peter was innocent. That was another thing Tony knew. He had to be innocent. He’d told the truth about his crime. When had he ever lied?</p><p>And yet he had the Raft. And he’d had batons and eyes on him and a knife at his throat and he’d had Larry Miller.</p><p>And yet he knew about love.</p><p>Tony began to think that maybe he never had the right kind of love.</p><p> </p><p>They gave him nothing but bread and water. Twenty-four meals. Two weeks.</p><p>Obadiah Stane opened his door on the twenty-fourth meal.</p><p>“You don’t look too good, huh, Stark?”</p><p>Tony thought, <em> fuck you, son of a bitch. </em> But he said nothing.</p><p>“You’d better think real hard about why you’re in here. And don’t ever, ever, compromise my trust again. I can leave you to rot here for the rest of your life. Don’t you forget that.”</p><p>Tony said nothing.</p><p>“We’re having a lot of fun with your kid.”</p><p>And then Tony was scared and angry but Stane shut the door in his face so it almost knocked his head and there was darkness.</p><p> </p><p>Tony can’t tell at what point it became clear. All he knows is that before it wasn’t, and now it is.</p><p>He’s going to escape.</p><p>The darkness is still dark, but it’s no longer heavy. It’s a blanket, not a boulder. He sees yellow, like the sun but soft. Like in the morning when it rises gently and puts white on the leaves and grass. When it pours itself out from between clouds. When it warms you but doesn’t burn you.</p><p>Tony eats bread and drinks water and thinks of the vent in the office where he works in the evenings. He thinks of the utility corridor along the edge of the building. He’d worked on maintenance fees for the Raft and it had been tiny on the map he’d studied. Tiny enough nobody in their right fucking mind would go down there.</p><p>It’s a good job Tony is batshit, he supposes.</p><p>It’s easy to escape prison when you’re in a void. When light bursts into his cell and stays, however, nothing makes sense anymore. There’s a world and it fucking blows.</p><p>Tony had eaten fifty-six meals in there. Twenty-eight days. Four solid weeks.</p><p>There is no <em> your sentence is over. </em> He’s just pulled out. They don’t bother to take him back to the cafeteria. They leave and he’s there.</p><p>Everything is fake, he’s pretty sure.</p><p>God. He has a whole beard. The skin on his hands hangs from his knuckles. He smells like a pile of shit. He smells. Where are the showers? Where is he?</p><p>There’s noise, and it rings in his ears and hurts him. Light.</p><p>Someone’s coming towards him but he can’t focus on them right. They’re almost running. Then he smells Pall Malls. <em> Goddamn, kid. They really are easy to locate by smell. </em></p><p>He’s right in front of Tony. He’s talking. He takes Tony’s arm and starts to lead him down the corridor. It’s a really fucking sweet thing to do. Tony wants to cry.</p><p>
  <em> Never heard of four weeks in solitary before. Have you? You haven’t heard of that, right?  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I bet you haven’t. It’s fucking unfair, is what it is. They didn’t even take you back to me and the boys. That’s what I’m doing, okay? We’re going to the cafeteria. First, I’m gonna let you have some fresh air, I think. How does that sound, Tony?  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Does that sound good?  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I reckon you’re feeling screwed-up. That’s alright. I’ll tell you something, though. You fucking reek. You’d better get your ass in the showers once you feel better. How are you feeling? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Do you want to talk to me, Tony? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I have some cigarettes. I got Marlboros and I saved them for you. I won them off Steve. I thought you’d like them even more if you knew that. I’ll light one for you if you want? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Goddamn, Tony, you know, I’m being honest here. This is strange. I know you like to talk. You talk everyone’s fucking asses off half the time. I started to miss you saying ‘fuck you’ to me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Want me to say it for old times’ sake? </em>
</p><p>Peter looks around at him. It’s like Tony has come back from the dead. He huffs out this painful-sounding breath from his chest. </p><p>He blinks a lot of times at Tony and then he says, “Hey.”</p><p>Tony just goes ahead and says it. <em> Fuck you. </em></p><p>“Fuck you too.” Peter’s beaming. He’s got a black eye. This kid collects black eyes like it pays. His cheek is scabbed over and bruised. Fucking hell. <em> We’re having a lot of fun with your kid. </em></p><p><em> What happened to you? </em> </p><p>“It’s nothing.” </p><p>With more conviction, Tony says, “That’s not what I asked.” </p><p>“Just--” Peter sighs, still fiddling with the pack of burns he’d been showing Tony. “I don't even know. The warden called me into a room, locked the door, and a bunch of guards were in there and they… got me. They didn’t say anything, so I don’t know what the hell it was.”</p><p>He stopped. Tony looked at him. He added, “But I'm alright." </p><p>
  <em> We’re having a lot of fun with your kid. </em>
</p><p>"They didn't do anything else?"</p><p>Peter gets real quiet. He tucks an arm around himself. </p><p>He shakes his head.</p><p>
  <em> Stark! Here to join the fun? </em>
</p><p>Tony’s got to get out. He has to fucking get out.</p><p>They’re walking down the corridor. They’re under the lights.</p><p>"I always wanted to know one thing, kid." </p><p>Peter stops. Maybe it was something in the way Tony had spoken. "What?"</p><p>"How did it feel when the Ravagers were fucking you?" </p><p>There it is: that one moment where the kid’s face is completely raw and real and fucking heartbreaking. Tony wants to die looking at it, but he already did so it doesn’t matter. It’s sort of captivating, too. Knowing he was the one to put that expression there. </p><p>The kid slams anger down on top of his hurt and pushes Tony up against the wall. "Shut up,” he says, and it splinters but it’s murderous too. “Shut the fuck up. You can't talk about it." </p><p>"Because people will hear? They already knew, kid."</p><p>It’s true. It’s shitty of him to say, but it’s true.</p><p>The kid would always have trouble getting up and down. You could see that he was biting back some noise of pain or other whenever he sat at the cafeteria after it had happened. He’d try to re-adjust his pants without anyone seeing. He’d walk real stiffly. Sometimes he’d struggle to walk at all and he’d get yelled at by the guards because he was slowing down the line as they filed out of their cells and that was too fucking much because the guards were already pretending none of that shit was happening when they knew as well as any of the inmates.</p><p>Everyone knew. They knew who the Ravagers were and what they did.</p><p>Peter lets go of Tony. He turns away and puts his face into his hands like he wants to mash it into a pulp. "You're being a fucking asshole." </p><p>"I was just asking." </p><p>In an instant, the kid’s hand is in his shirt pocket; he gets out one of the Marlboros and lights it in a hurry and says, "I'm gone. I'm not talking about it. Fucking hell." He starts to leave.</p><p>"Wait. I need to talk to you about something." </p><p>"I don't care." </p><p>Peter’s shaking, and Tony is guilty as all hell.</p><p>"It's fucking important." He needs the kid to know that. He doesn’t know why in hell he just said what he said. He’s fucked up. But he has one thing he has to tell Peter.</p><p>"Get away from me,” Peter tells him back. </p><p>Not a mild <em> fuck off. Get away from me. </em> As if Tony disgusted him.</p><p>“Peter.”</p><p>That makes him stop. It’s been <em> kid </em> for six years.</p><p> </p><p>They get out into the courtyard; Peter’s still smoking clumsily, still shaking, although Tony doubts if he’s noticed himself.</p><p>“I’m going to do something.” That’s the first thing he says when they’re alone.</p><p>The kid understands.</p><p>“Will I be punished if I do it with you?” he asks after looking at Tony for a long time.</p><p>“Only if it fails.”</p><p>Peter’s still looking at him real hard.</p><p>“Do you want to do it with me?” Tony says.</p><p>You can tell there’s a war going on inside the kid. If Tony hadn’t fucked up, that wouldn’t be happening.</p><p>Before he can get a response, he keeps talking. “I’m going to go to Mexico.”</p><p>“Tony.”</p><p>Peter doesn’t look conflicted now. He looks sad.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Do you know where you are?”</p><p>“I’m in the Raft, I’ve been here for twenty-two goddamn years, and I finally know how to get out. I promise, I do. And you can come with me.”</p><p>“How?”</p><p>The kid doesn’t believe him.</p><p>“I’m not crazy. There’s nothing wrong with me. I figured it out, okay?”</p><p>“Tony, it’s a high-security prison.” Peter’s voice is too gentle. “Nobody’s ever gotten out that I’ve heard of. I’m sorry they didn’t grant you parole.”</p><p>“That’s not what it was.” He grabs Peter because he has to make him understand. If there is any moment in his stupid life that matters, it’s this one. It’s getting the kid to escape with him.</p><p>The kid is good. He is innocent. He can get out.</p><p>“The panel approved me. Okay? I’m not crazy. I saw it happen. You know I’m a reasonable man, kid. Right?”</p><p>“Right,” Peter says, like he isn’t sure.</p><p>“The guy approved me, then he rejected me. He’d been paid off so I couldn’t be granted bail and I couldn’t tell anyone on the outside that Stane is a fraud. <em> Trust me, </em> kid. That’s what happened. Which means I would’ve gotten parole. I’m supposed to be out of here. And so are you. I know just how to do it. It’s actually pretty fucking perfect.”</p><p>Peter’s eyes start to change. They start to look at Tony like they’re really seeing him.</p><p>He pauses before throwing his half-smoked Marlboro to the ground. “You’re not fucking with me?”</p><p>“Not in the slightest.”</p><p>“You wanna take me?”</p><p>“I believe you, kid. I believe that you didn’t do anything.”</p><p>“We’re getting out.”</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p>“Shit. Holy shit.”</p><p>Peter’s countenance floods with hope and Tony smiles for the first time since he went into the hole.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Any speculations as to how the boys will get out??<br/>Today's totally random song rec: Looking For Love by Birdtalker! Their song Free Like a Broken Heart inspired the title of this fic and I love their specific vibe of indie? pop? folk?? rock??? stuff??? idk what music genre they are but I like them :) They also do lots of different versions of songs - you can listen to the chill, wistful version of Looking For Love or you can hear the boppy fun one!!<br/>Anyone else got a song rec for me and your fellow commenters?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So. It's October now apparently. Haha isn't that wild</p><p>A spoiler-free tip about the numbers used for money amounts in this chapter: in the 50s, the value of 1 dollar would now be equivalent to about 10 dollars. Multiply whatever numbers I use by 10 and you'll get the rough idea of how the characters see these amounts of money!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild.</p><p>
  <em> --Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>While they’re on laundry detail, Peter takes two guards’ uniforms, one garment at a time, and hides them inside his shirt. Tony makes sure nobody watches him doing it. It takes almost two months in all but they don’t get caught.</p><p>It feels unreal.</p><p>They eat at the cafeteria and play poker with Steve and Bucky and Clint. Tony feels like a rock is lodged in his chest when he spends time with the boys. He can’t save them. He can’t, but he fucking wishes he could. </p><p>The kid is even more effervescent than usual, however. He lights cigarettes then promptly forgets about them in the middle of talking with somebody. He probably wastes an entire pack of smokes doing that. He just lets them sit between his fingers and talks and talks. He keeps looking at Tony.</p><p>At night, they work together in what has become Tony’s office. Peter writes poetry for the guards and Tony works on their finances. This is how Tony knows they’ll both be able to escape: the guards usually leave them alone to finish, alone with the wide vent.</p><p>Tony smuggles a screwdriver from the outside.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>June 1958</em>
</p><p>It’s morning, and they have everything they need. They’re waiting for an evening when it’s just them in the office. Tony is close to shitting his goddamn pants.</p><p>Half of him thinks this whole idea of escaping is stupid. The other half hopes recklessly.</p><p>The cell doors roll open. Tony steps out and sees Peter in front of him. </p><p>The kid turns his eyes to the dim ceiling and says, “It’s a good morning, isn’t it?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Tony replies. “Sure is.”</p><p>And he swears that above Peter’s head he can see the light of the sun.</p><p>They can’t exactly say goodbye to the boys, but Peter makes a few of these little heartfelt statements. To Steve, he just says, “You’re a good man. You really are.” He goes to Clint, who’s sitting a few seats away, and tells him, “I hope you get to see your kids again soon.” He even talks to Sam: You know, you’re not half as bad as you make yourself out to be.”</p><p>Tony puts all of his remaining cigarettes into the poker game and plays a bad hand. Bucky wins. For some reason, it’s nice to see the man crow over his winnings. </p><p> </p><p>The thing that’s bothering Tony is Ben. He wishes he knew how the old man had fared outside of prison. Well, really what he’s worried about is himself. Because escape isn’t all of it. He has to live afterwards.</p><p>The Raft - fuck, he hates to say it, but the Raft is home. He’s locked up and carted around and told when to piss and when to eat and when to sit and do fucking nothing, and that’s how it is. That’s what he knows. </p><p> </p><p>The office is silent and warmly lit. Outside is darkness. </p><p>Schultz is starting to shuffle about behind them. The kid continues to work diligently, but his hand is tight around his pen. Tony clears his throat; it sounds abrasive.</p><p>“I’m taking a walk,” Schultz finally says. “Finish your work.” </p><p>He’s going to hang about in the room three doors down and fuck around with the other guards, Tony knows. There’s no fun for him here watching over the two of them. Nobody for him to beat up. </p><p>This is it.</p><p>His heart shudders in his chest, betraying him, as Schultz’s boots tap away. Further. The door creaks, then it closes. </p><p>He watches the kid out of the corner of his eye, watches him lift his pen from the page but continue to move it back and forth in the air, miming writing. The seconds pass. Then Peter puts the pen back down and writes <em> fuck </em> four times in a row, running to the end of the line. <em> Fuck fuck fuck fuck. </em></p><p>Tony taps him on the shoulder.</p><p><em> Kid, </em> he mouths. <em> This is it. </em></p><p>Peter smiles, looking fucking insane.</p><p>They can’t make noise - they can’t afford to on the off-chance that a guard will hear them. This is their one goddamn chance. They can’t mess it up. They <em> can’t. </em></p><p>The kid has already taken the screwdriver out from inside his waistband. He gets up real slow, sliding out of his chair without moving it, his fists clenched viciously, and goes across to the vent while Tony gets his folded plastic bag out from his trouser pocket. They’d gotten a delivery of library books in that bag. It’s sturdy enough to keep the documents he slides inside safe from wet and dirt, or he hopes so anyway.</p><p>Before he can close the bag, the kid comes back across to him and hands him his poetry notebook. Tony tucks it inside.</p><p>Peter’s been working at the vent, easing open the screws. It’s the strange type of vent that opens on a hinge, the type that’s also really goddamn convenient because they’ll be able to close it behind them and make it look like they disappeared without a trace. Now, Tony sees him swing it open. </p><p>It creaks a little and Tony might throw up. But it’s alright. No approaching footsteps.</p><p><em> I got it, </em> mouths the kid.</p><p>Tony nods.</p><p>He takes the bag and he takes out a length of rope from the supply closet. Just like in his dreams of suicide, but a whole lot better. He ties the bag to his ankle. He needs his hands free.</p><p>When he goes to the kid, he can actually feel the anticipation coming off of him. Tony can’t help but absorb it. He’s jittery as hell too.</p><p>They’ve planned this part, talked it through in whispers. Tony laces his hands over his thigh and Peter steps into it and Tony lifts his leg and the kid grips the outside of the vent and climbs in, slowly, hesitantly.</p><p>His foot strikes the rim of the vent. They both freeze. Tony’s going to fucking explode. He shakes.</p><p>But nobody comes. It’s just silence, the distant sounds of the guards probably talking shit about the inmates. The inmates they’re leaving behind. God.</p><p>He’s meant to be free, Tony reminds himself with a clenching of his jaw to drive it home. The kid is meant to be free.</p><p>They’re leaving. Holy shit, they’re leaving.</p><p>Peter’s managed to turn around inside the passageway of the vent and it’s taken fucking forever but he’s there at last. As he brings down an arm, Tony reaches up, and he’s hauled towards the hole. He is fifty-one years old and he’s not built for this shit anymore. He climbs anyway, fitting himself inside. He’s inside. He and the kid are there. He tucks his ankle in and pulls at the bag until it gets inside too. Then he grabs the vent cover and slowly, slowly, pulls it shut.</p><p>When he turns back to meet Peter, the kid’s a whirlpool of rampant emotion. Tony wonders if he looks the same.</p><p>The two of them army-crawl through the vent passage. The further they get, the more noise they can make without detection, but they’re silent anyway because they’re scared scared scared. The metal beneath Tony is cold as a bitch. He can hear the kid’s breaths in front of him. They’re shaky but he’s trying to puff them in and out evenly, quietly.</p><p>It’s too small. Tony keeps thinking about his cell, about getting trapped, but he can’t think about that.</p><p>Then there’s another grate and Peter unscrews it a little faster and when he pushes it open they’re at the maintenance corridor. Perfect. The map was correct, then. Tony is so relieved about that that he could pass out. </p><p>The maintenance corridor is difficult: there’s no real floor, just a bunch of pipes, and it’s only about four feet wide. It’s also really fucking dim. As he’s crawling out of the vent, however, probably looking like a motherfucking klutz with the way he’s contorted, a burst of light startles both him and the kid. A few seconds later comes the clap of thunder.</p><p>Peter gets a hold of his gaze once he’s balanced on a pipe and whispers, “Even the weather is on our side.”</p><p>Then it gets strange - strange, but also ingenious. You’ll have to trust Tony, okay? He hardly trusts himself, but there’s nothing he can do about that now. </p><p>Peter’s already fishing out the screwdriver again, but Tony stops him. “Clothes,” he murmurs.</p><p>Recognition goes through Peter’s countenance. Then they’re stripping off their prison uniforms. Tony had thought he’d fucking boil to a crisp wearing the stolen guard uniforms beneath, but in truth, he hardly noticed throughout the day that he was wearing two sets of clothes. Black slacks and a white shirt. Anybody could be wearing that. They’ll be indistinguishable once they get into the real world.</p><p>But that’s not it. They get out of the guard clothes next, stumbling on the pipes and in the dark, until they’re in ragged boxer shorts and undershirts. Everything feels fucking unreal. The kid scrambles about like a madman. Then they put their prison clothes back on for the last time. They can afford to get their own uniforms dirty, and they’ll get real fucking dirty.</p><p>They’re dressed again. Tony grabs Peter’s arm in the dark just to make sure he’s there. Part of him is suspicious he’s making this all up. But the kid is solid, and his eyes fix on Tony. Tony sees everything there on Peter’s face. Every emotion you could think of, arrayed like a map.</p><p>Tony gives him a nod and he gets the screwdriver and grips it with both hands. He brings it down with a <em> thunk </em> on the widest pipe.</p><p>They’re so close. Holy shit, they’re so fucking close. It’s the hardest, shittiest part to come, though.</p><p>Peter punches a million little holes in the pipe, making a circle just like they’d discussed. He starts to pant with the effort. The circle is complete. He lifts a foot, brings it down in the middle of the circle of holes, and it dents. It doesn’t come through.</p><p>The kid turns to Tony then, panic clear on his face in a new flash of lightning. </p><p>“Keep going,” Tony tells him. He doesn’t fucking know.</p><p>Peter braces his hand on the wall and kicks the circle with all he has and it still hasn’t come through.</p><p>Tony’s thinking, <em> shit. </em></p><p>He goes over and takes the screwdriver and drives in a few more holes himself. They’re pretty pathetic compared to Peter’s and the kid must see that because he takes it back and widens the holes. He starts to get almost ferocious, stabbing down the instrument. Tony thinks of him punching through napkins with his pencil while he wrote poetry. Fire.</p><p>There are at least eight more holes and Peter pushes Tony away a little so he can rear back and kick it. He kicks it. He kicks it.</p><p>And it comes through.</p><p>Tony doesn’t pray, but he comes really fucking close to thanking God just then.</p><p>He watches as the kid sort of collapses then, grips his hair in his hands for a moment, looking like his heart’s beating just as fast as Tony’s. He starts to worm his way inside the hole then. Tony can already smell the god-awful stink coming out of it.</p><p>He knows this pipe from when he’d been made to fuck around with sewage. He’d actually volunteered for that shit, not knowing what they’d make him do. He supposes there was a silver lining to that in the end.</p><p>Peter hardly hesitates as he goes in. He’s moving out of pure adrenaline, then. Tony gets the bag fastened around his ankle again. He double-knots it because they need it. If they don’t get the documents out with them, they won’t make it. Simple as that.</p><p>And then the kid’s disappeared and Tony has to go in after him and this might just be the last time he sees the Raft from the inside. </p><p>The smell hits him like it’s a solid wave of shit the moment he sticks his head inside. Peter’s got a torch they took from a drawer in the desk; the beam is inching away. He really doesn’t wanna get into this pipe. Every nerve in his body resists it. It’s tiny and shitty and pitch-black but for the torchlight feet ahead. The kid’s making a whole lot of sounds, grunting, shuddering, gagging.</p><p>Tony crawls inside the sewage pipe.</p><p>And Christ Almighty, his gut instincts weren’t wrong, because it feels like the foul air might kill him. He has to tuck his head into his chest to fit and it means his face is inches from the shit. Flailing around like a dumbass, Tony squeezes Peter’s ankle to let him know he’s made it in.</p><p>And he’s crawling. And it’s fucking difficult to crawl like this, it drains the life right out of him, and he’s dragging the documents and they tug on his ankle every time he shuffles forwards, and his head pounds like it’ll burst, and somehow none of that matters any. </p><p><em> Free, </em> thuds Tony’s heart. <em> Free. </em></p><p>There’s the shuffling torch beam, and the slapping of shit against the pipe, and Peter retching, and then Tony retching. They throw up endlessly. They can’t help it. The pipe runs for five hundred feet before it ends outside the Raft. Almost the length of five football pitches. To Tony, it’s just endless.</p><p>When Peter starts to make these wheezing, heaving noises and Tony hits his static feet, he says, “Don’t stop, kid.” </p><p>“I know.”</p><p>With a groan, he starts up crawling again. Tony’s arms are shaking, fit to snap. </p><p>Peter gasps and says, “Only about twenty yards. We’re close. We’re real close.” </p><p>Tony sees it now: the dusky blue past the torchlight. Quietly, the rustling of grass.</p><p>It’s there. It’s fucking there. He’s here and Peter’s here and when they get out, they’ll never have to be trapped ever again.</p><p>After twenty-two years, the world is still waiting for him.</p><p>Without really thinking about it, Tony starts to shout. He lets out a little shout every time he moves forward. Peter starts up, too, both of them crying out. They’re ten feet away, nine, eight--</p><p>Peter tips out of the tunnel and Tony loses sight of him.</p><p>Tony sucks in one more shit-smelling breath and crawls faster than he’s ever crawled in his life. You usually don’t have much reason to crawl, unless you’re a fucking dumbass, but if there’s ever a reason to crawl for your goddamn life this is it. The night is there. The sky will be unbridled by fences. The stars will greet Tony.</p><p>He hears a gasp brimming full with joy, and then he’s falling.</p><p>Underwater. On instinct, he kicks his legs. They strike mud. He pushes them upwards and he’s above water. He’s in a stream. He’s in the rain. He’s outside, really outside.</p><p>Lightning is the backdrop to his view of the kid, maybe ten feet distant, with his head thrown back and his arms stretched wide. Peter lets out this noise that’s a gasp and a sigh and a sob and a cheer all at once. He’s just standing like that in the rain like a lunatic, the rain washing away his shame until he’s a clean man.</p><p>Tony’s gut drops all of a sudden.</p><p>Why does he feel like backing out? He sees the Raft five hundred feet away and he wishes that he couldn’t say he missed it. He’s fucked up. He’s thinking about Ben and he can’t stop. Thinking about owning a house and buying groceries and taking care of a kid and having the chance to stop being lonely but missing it. </p><p>God, he’s lonely. The sky is a canvas for his loneliness. Each star is so far apart. It never reaches its friends.</p><p>
  <em> Do you feel it, Tony? </em>
</p><p><em> What? </em> he says, turning to the kid.</p><p>Peter’s still stretched out so much his fingertips strain, the corners of his mouth. <em> Are you getting it? </em></p><p>
  <em> Getting what, kid? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joy. </em>
</p><p>Tony pauses. He looks at the stars. He looks at the pipe pumping shitty water into the stream. He looks at the trees. He looks at acres of land before them and the Raft behind. Before he can look at any more shit, he’s assaulted by Peter splashing him in the face with more dirty stream water.</p><p>The kid laughs, that pealing, all-out sound only he can make, and Tony pretends to be angry as he gets the water out of his eyes. It’s pointless because there’s rain and water everywhere anyway. Tony splashes the kid back. Peter falls over in his attempt to dodge it. Tony laughs like he’s fucking drunk or something. Peter emerges and his hair is all plastered to his face. He’s running with water. </p><p>Tony goes over to him and helps him up while he’s still sort of laughing, and then they both decide to watch the sky together at the same time. It just happens. </p><p>They breathe in the good air. They breathe the air of free men. The rain eases.</p><p> </p><p>They didn’t pack spare underwear, so the first thing they do once they’ve discarded their prison clothes is lie around on the bank, waiting for their underclothes to get as dry as they can. Both of them are fucking wiped out, so they’re glad to rest - the kid actually manages to drop off to sleep for five minutes - but they’re nervous too. They’re waiting every second to hear an alarm from five hundred feet behind them. Peter’s undershirt is too short for him and where it’s ridden up you can see the white nicks on the skin of his stomach from when they took out his spleen. Sometimes Tony forgets that happened. He doesn’t think the kid has, though.</p><p>“C’mon,” he says eventually, “We can’t lie around here forever.”</p><p>It’s also getting really cold. Freeze-your-balls-off cold. The smart trousers and shirts are stupidly difficult to get on over their damp skin and they’re both shivering. It’s been a hell of a fucking day.</p><p>“Oh, fuck,” Peter says a lot of times.</p><p>But they’re there and their shoes spit out water as they walk but they’re going, they’re walking into the wilderness like they’ve set off on a motherfucking hike, they don’t even turn back. Tony’s got the plastic bag clenched in his hand. He might never let it go.</p><p>The kid is just about as exhausted as him, he can tell, but he keeps going like the devil’s at his heels. That’s sort of the case. </p><p>“You got the stuff?” he asks.</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p>And then again a while later: “You have the stuff, don’t you?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>He wrings out his hair.</p><p>It’s a fucking nightmare and a dream at the same time: the fields out ahead of them, the endless open sky, the air and the freedom and the space. It makes Tony reel. <em> Just get to the nearest town. </em></p><p>All they really need is a bank. Once Tony can get to a bank, they can disappear.</p><p> </p><p>Tony has no goddamn clue what time it is and he doesn’t even mind.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, hey, I see something. I think we found somewhere.”</p><p>And they have. There’s one clear-shot road running through the centre of it like the path to salvation. There’s a bank and a car dealership and a convenience store and a mailbox and that’s all they need. The only problem is that it’s pitch black and everything is shut. So they figure sleeping will be the best way to pass the time. They track back a little to the wide trunk of a tree and dump their shit there and decide to sleep in shifts so nobody can sneak up on them or do any crazy shit. </p><p>“I’ll watch you first,” the kid says, although he’s actually fighting off a yawn right as he fucking says it.</p><p>“Come on, kid. I know you’re tired.”</p><p>“So are you. Plus, you need to rest your old man joints.”</p><p>“Hey, fuck you. I was being nice and then this?”</p><p>“I’ll watch first to make up for it, then.” Peter’s already getting out his notebook.</p><p>Tony can’t argue anymore. He promptly passes the fuck out.</p><p>The kid’s still got his wire ring on.</p><p>It’s almost dawn when Tony comes to. He looks around but he can’t see the kid. Fuck. </p><p>But when he sits up he sees him, just a couple of inches away, fast asleep with his face mashed into the ground and his poetry book and pencil still in his hands.</p><p>He shakes the kid awake.</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>“Huh? Oh? Oh. Fuck. Shit, Tony, I’m sorry.”</p><p>Tony looks around but he can’t see a search party or any cops or people spying on them or anything. “Goddamn. People might have seen."</p><p>The kid’s getting really flustered. “I’m so fucking sorry. God.”</p><p>“It’s alright.”</p><p>“It’s--?”</p><p>“Nothing you can do about being worn out, right?”</p><p>Tony feels like somebody else. He thinks he likes that somebody else.</p><p>Peter swallows then nods. He starts to droop pretty much instantly.</p><p>“Well, it’s your turn to get some rest.”</p><p>“But I was just asleep.”</p><p>“It’s almost morning anyway. Quit arguing and get some sleep, alright?”</p><p>Peter eventually obliges. He’s shivering and he looks kind of pathetic. No, not pathetic - just vulnerable. He doesn’t look twenty-three.</p><p>It’s the somebody else, Tony thinks, that pulls the kid back up, props him against the tree trunk, and puts an arm around him. That’s why he’s oblivious to the dumbfounded look Peter gives him at first. When he sees fear there, though, he snaps out of it.</p><p>“It’s warmer,” he says like an inarticulate fuck.</p><p>Peter sort of looks around, not moving away or anything, but he feels tense.</p><p>“I’m not queer or anything like that, you know,” Tony goes on, “I’d never…”</p><p>“Yeah. No. Uh, thank you.” </p><p>And it’s hair-splittingly awkward for those few seconds and Tony wants to fucking dig a hole in the field and bury his head in it. But then Peter seems to decide on something and he relaxes in Tony’s hold. That’s when it becomes... okay. </p><p>In only about a minute, he’s heavy and still against Tony, and where Tony thought he might feel some kind of fucking existential terror, there’s just--</p><p>Quiet.</p><p>Tony’s holding someone.</p><p>He hasn’t done that in twenty-two years.</p><p>He feels the old love for it rekindling.</p><p>It isn’t like he tells people that he likes to do this. He never had a wealth of opportunities or anything. Mostly, even if it was with Faith, he’d be a pansy or he’d be soft. Maybe that made it even more precious. Maybe this feels the most precious of any of those moments. A starving man reunited with his holy grail.</p><p>Slowly, the kid’s shivering lessens.</p><p> </p><p>Tony’s up the next morning and trying his best to clean himself up before he goes into the bank. He doesn’t bring Peter because that’s the safest thing to do. They don’t have a comb or clean water to wash with or even a cigarette to make Tony feel human again. All that shit would’ve just gotten soaked, would’ve just distracted them. Peter’s helpful though, talking incessantly at him, telling him where to slick his hair back with spit. Yeah, it’s fucking gross, but it’s what there is.</p><p>He turns and leaves the kid packing up their things and he doesn’t like to leave Peter but he’s also ridiculously fucking excited about his first stop.</p><p>Of course you want to know what that stop is. Well, it’s the mailbox. He has an important delivery to make. </p><p>Inside it, he slides a folder that includes more than enough evidence to convict Stane of fraud twice over. The accounting books are fucking riddled with fraudelent behaviour. Tony also wrote and signed a testimony both admitting to aiding the warden in committing said fraud and explaining the pressure he was under to do it.</p><p>Stane was well and truly fucked. Good.</p><p>Now, all that was left for Tony was to disappear. To don a shiny-new identity.</p><p> </p><p>“If you could sign at the bottom, Mr. Potts.”</p><p>It’s for his cashier’s check. He’s already written a signature to match the ones on Howard Potts’ birth certificate and passport. Now, he’s about to draw all four hundred thousand dollars from his account in cash and in the check. His heart is laughing.</p><p>Tony signs and takes the check. The teller’s clerk comes to him, smiles, gives him a wad of bills.</p><p>“I must say that I’m sorry to be losing your business,” the teller says to him. “I hope you enjoy living abroad, Mr. Potts.”</p><p>God. Peter would be getting such a fucking kick out of this if he was here. <em> Mr. Potts. </em></p><p>Tony walks out of the bank a new man, his pockets four hundred thousand dollars heavier. Even during his stint as a hotshot banker in the 30s, the most he’d earned yearly was maybe nine thousand.</p><p>Four hundred thousand dollars will set him for life. The kid <em>and</em> him.</p><p>He goes back to Peter, who’s pacing aimlessly, and thrusts the bills into his hands. Peter gapes at him.</p><p>“Fucking - is this--?”</p><p>He’d gotten them in fives and tens just so they would look even more goddamn ridiculous.</p><p>“About a two-thousandth of what’s in the check, yeah.”</p><p>“Holy shit! Holy shit!”</p><p>“Mm-hm.”</p><p>“Tony!”</p><p>And it goes like that for some time.</p><p> </p><p>They have money and they can buy anything on God’s green motherfucking earth with it, but they stop at a Kroger first because Tony feels like a fucking hot mess, hungry and thirsty and dirty and scrambled, and he can bet that Peter feels the same way. There isn’t exactly a shower block, but there’s bottled water. Fucking hell,<em> water. </em> Tony is parched. Peter grabs six bottles off the shelf.</p><p>They get two washcloths and a map of the USA and a large bottle of whisky and two packs of Pall Malls and two packs of Marlboros and two lighters and two blankets and some groceries to put together sandwiches and a box of this ready-made chocolate pudding shit the kid swears is sent from heaven. Tony picks out trousers and a shirt and a belt and a flat cap. No tie, because fuck ties. The styles are different nowadays. Everything’s bomber jackets and neckties and denim in this place. The whole store is larger, actually. There’s a thousand different brands for fucking everything.</p><p>Peter turns around and he’s got a funny-looking cap on with a stiff brim jutting out over his forehead. It’s navy blue. He’s smiling a little.</p><p>“What the hell is that thing?”</p><p>“You don’t know baseball caps?” The kid’s got a mountain of denim over his arm. He plucks it from his own head and jams it onto Tony’s.</p><p>“Baseball cap,” Tony says to himself. He takes it off. “It’s fucking weird, is what it is.”</p><p>They cash out the stuff and the woman at the counter raises an eyebrow but they ignore her.</p><p>They get out behind the shop and change there real fast. Tony has grey trousers, a shirt that’s sort of maroon and a new undershirt beneath it, a good sturdy flight jacket over. Just as Tony had expected, Peter has jeans and a denim jacket, a blue shirt beneath it, and the blue cap. He’s blue all over. He must like blue.</p><p>Tony asks him about that.</p><p>“It’s my favourite colour,” is the answer.</p><p> </p><p>They go to the car dealership and although they both have their eyes on the crazy Cadillac in the corner, they go for a convertible Thunderbird. It’s bright blue. There’s absolutely no reason Tony picked blue.</p><p>“It’s kind of like buying my first car, I guess,” Peter says, looking fucking giddy. </p><p>There’s a man at the counter who smiles at him and says, “Well, I hope you enjoy it. And I assume your old man here will be showing you the ropes?”</p><p>Neither Tony nor Peter know what to say to that.</p><p> </p><p>They get in the Thunderbird and it roars to life. It’s got a hell of a noisy engine.</p><p>Tony hits the gas and they pull out of the dealership onto the open road with brand new clothes, new belongings, a new life.</p><p>Peter lights Tony’s smoke for him as he drives and gets out a Pall Mall for himself afterwards. His hair has lost its usual gelled style. It’s just whipping back and forth, looking kind of ridiculous but free. Free.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Does this count as an unofficial whumptober chapter??? I say yes :)<br/>They're out!!! Are y'all happy??<br/>Hey, if you don't know what to say in a comment but you want to write one, tell me about the best thing that happened to you this week! I like to hear from all you guys :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Welcome back, folks!! This is,,,, this chapter is something. Definitely something. You're gonna want to read it. But carefully. Good luck my friends!!! Oh man AAAAA<br/>Song: Lonely Boy by Paul Anka, a 50s classic :)</p><p>Trigger warning: intolerant period-typical attitudes. Stay safe and stop reading if the content feels harmful to you. All will be explained in the end notes!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>How we need that security. How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.</p><p>
  <em> -- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>And will the new young flowers die? </p><p>And will the new young people die? </p><p>And why? </p><p>
  <em> --Brendan Kennedy, Poem from a Three Year Old </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>The sun is mild but glorious today and Tony and Peter can enjoy it as much as they fucking want and that’s beautiful.</p><p>They’ve got the Thunderbird’s roof down, of course. Peter’s squinting at the map.</p><p>“Know how to read it?” Tony asks him.</p><p>“Well, you don’t really read it.”</p><p>“That’s what you say, though.”</p><p>“I still think it’s wrong.” He starts tracing something with a finger. The paper is flapping back and forth. “Looks like we’ll end up on the interstate pretty directly if we just follow this road. We take the interstate southbound and we’re on our way. How long do you think it’ll take to get all the way to Mexico?”</p><p>“If I remember right, about thirty, thirty-five hours.”</p><p>Peter sits back. He takes off his cap and throws it to his feet. “That’s about… if we drive for nine hours a day, we’ll be there in about four days.”</p><p>Tony can’t help but laugh at him. “Fuck the math. Let’s just get there.”</p><p>“Where in Mexico did you even want to go?”</p><p>“Honestly, kid, I don’t really have a goddamn clue. Maybe Mexico is just a stopping-off point. Maybe we go somewhere else.” The endless possibilities are kind of crippling but also pretty fucking thrilling. “Anywhere you have in mind?”</p><p>The kid thinks about this, then shakes his head.</p><p>“Nowhere?”</p><p>“Nowhere in particular.”<br/><br/></p><p>Peter had turned on the radio and found this song he clearly knew, although Tony didn’t. Tony’s fucking old and doesn’t know anything. He’s twenty-two years away from the world.</p><p><em> I'm just a lonely boy, </em>goes the song.</p><p>
  <em> Lonely and blue, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I'm all alone </em>
</p><p>
  <em> With nothing to do </em>
</p><p>The kid’s tapping his fingers on the rim of the door. He throws his head back so it hits the headrest and bursts into song.</p><p>
  <em> I've got everything </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You could think of, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But all I want </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Is someone to love </em>
</p><p>Then he’s clambering up like a schoolkid monkeying around in a tree and he perches on top of the seat and gets buffeted by the wind but just laughs.</p><p>“You’re gonna fucking kill yourself!” Tony calls up at him. There’s no heat behind it. He gets a lot of amusement out of the weird shit the kid gets up to. He’s not about to complain about it.</p><p>Peter stretches out his arms like Jesus on the cross and says, “Then I’d die happy.” </p><p>Tony laughs at him.</p><p>
  <em> Someone, yes someone to love </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Someone to kiss </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Someone to hold </em>
</p><p>
  <em> At a moment like this </em>
</p><p>The kid’s a fucking lunatic, that’s for sure. He waves his arms back and forth, still bellowing out words, and it’s like he’s just now found the extent of his freedom. </p><p>
  <em> I've prayed so hard </em>
</p><p>
  <em> To the heavens above </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That I might find </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Someone to love </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“You know,” he tells Tony when he gets back in his seat, “While you were away in the hole, I won three poker games.”</p><p>“No shit?”</p><p>“And we only played three games.”</p><p>“Well, now you’re just being a dick about it.”</p><p>Peter laughs.</p><p>Tony’s got the bottle of whiskey braced against the wheel. It’s a case full of heaven.</p><p>“Did you starve all the boys of their smokes, then?”<br/>“Nah. I only took winnings the first time. I let them take everything back after because they looked so sad about it.”</p><p>Now Tony’s laughing.</p><p>“Can I get some of that whiskey?”</p><p>“Sure thing,” Tony tells him and hands it over.</p><p>The kid drinks with a shit-eating grin on his face.</p><p>“Really fucking good,” is his appraisal of the booze.</p><p>Tony takes it back and downs another mouthful. The lines between him and 1958 begin to blur. He thinks he feels the way the kid feels, or at least close.</p><p> </p><p>“‘Go inside and shut the door.’”</p><p>“When will I ever need to say that?”</p><p>“When will you ever need to speak french?”</p><p>Peter obliges eventually. <em> “Retourner…” </em></p><p><em> “Retournez. </em>With a z.”</p><p>“Why not an r?”</p><p>“Just - because. C’mon.”</p><p><em> “Retournez a l'intérieur, </em> I know that. Interior, inside. <em> Retournez a l’interieur, et… fermez la… la porte.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Vrai. Bravo.” </em>
</p><p>Tony has his eyes on the road, but he hears a graceful snort from his right and it tells him all he needs to know. </p><p><em> “Comment dites-vous </em> ‘you’re a fucking idiot’? Um, <em> ou juste </em> ‘fuck’?” The kid’s French is stumbling, his accent pretty Americanised still, but he’s growing in confidence. That much is clear.</p><p>
  <em> “Mon Dieu, gosse.” </em>
</p><p>Peter raises his eyebrows at him.</p><p>“Jesus Christ, kid,” Tony translates for him. The remark loses its integrity.</p><p>“What? If I can learn to speak in French, I can learn to swear.”</p><p>“Well, if you want to say ‘fuck’, <em> merde, putain, merde alors, putain de merde, </em> any of the above. If you want to call someone a fuck, that’s <em> enculé. Tu est un encule, </em>Peter.”</p><p>Peter rolls his eyes at him.</p><p>“‘You’re a fucking idiot’ specifically… that’s gotta be something like <em> tu es un putain d’idiot. </em> But that’s a direct translation, they’ll probably use an equivalent phrase in actual France.” </p><p>“Well, it’ll do in America for making people think I’m smarter than them.”</p><p>Through peals of laughter, Tony replies, “Parker, you never fail to entertain.”</p><p>“Glad I’m making myself useful,” the kid says with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s the right lane. I’m one hundred percent sure. Or - at least ninety.”</p><p>“Hey, show it to me.”</p><p>The kid angles the map towards Tony.</p><p>“No, it’s the middle one.”</p><p>“No, it’s gotta be the right. The right is the most direct. We’ll go all the way around Ohio if we take the middle one.”</p><p>“I thought we’d agreed on going round Ohio.”</p><p>“But that’s a stupid way to go.”</p><p>“It’ll cut off time at the other end.”</p><p>“It’s just longer.”</p><p>“I have ten fucking seconds to pick a lane.”</p><p>They’re hurtling down the freeway.</p><p>Peter throws the map away. “It’s the right, I’m telling you!”</p><p>“I’m taking the middle.”</p><p>“I’m fucking serious!”</p><p>“Yeah, me too! Eat shit!”</p><p>“Goddamn! Take the right, I’m telling you!”</p><p>At the last second, Tony veers to the right and earns a long honk from the guy behind.</p><p>“You’d better be right,” he huffs.</p><p>For some fucking reason, they both find themselves smiling at each other. Something about the adrenaline of not knowing where the fuck they’re going. Something about driving under the sun. Something about being free men. Tony doesn’t think that freedom will ever get old.</p><p> </p><p>Tony parks and they both take a piss in the nearby foliage. Peter’s faster than him. When Tony gets back he’s at the wheel and revving the engine, not moving but revving like he wants the world to hear it.</p><p>“I could drive next,” he suggests.</p><p>“No way.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“You’re an infant.”</p><p>“Hey, fuck you. I have a driver’s license back at home, if you’ll believe it.”</p><p>“I won’t believe it.”</p><p>“Look, why don’t I just show you? Nobody’s around or anything.”</p><p>“No. Nope. You’ll crash and we’ll die and it’ll be the biggest embarrassment of my life.”</p><p>“Ye of little faith,” Peter mumbles as he hops across into the passenger seat. His annoyance is mostly feigned, Tony can tell. He’s not the kind of guy to get easily annoyed. He reaches back to grab a Pall Mall from their jumble of belongings.</p><p> </p><p>Tony wonders about the Raft. If anyone’s looking for them. If they’ve figured out how they escaped. If they’ve still got no fucking clue and they’ve gotten away with everything. He wishes he could call Rhodey and ask how parole is treating him. He wishes he knew how the rest of the boys were holding up on the inside, if any more of them had made parole.</p><p>It’s just him and the kid, the kid and him. It’s not so bad.</p><p>Peter gets out the ubiquitous poetry book and grumbles about Tony’s driving being too bumpy for him to write. He gives up after about twenty minutes, leans back in his seat, and closes his eyes. The kid has a talent for sleeping. He could probably sleep anywhere, and he’s out in seconds. </p><p>But he wakes up maybe an hour later with a cry, like someone’s just punched him awake.</p><p>“What the fuck?” Tony says on instinct.</p><p>Peter blinks, then goes red. “Shit, sorry.”</p><p>He doesn’t say anything else and Tony doesn’t press.</p><p> </p><p>They check into a motel for the night and Tony asks for a single room with two beds. He just - it’s the first night where he gets to choose if he wants to have company overnight, and that’s what he wants. Peter goes along with it. It’s fine. A little weird, but what about all of this isn’t a little fucking weird?</p><p>And they put their stuff in the room and they take showers and <em>fuck, </em>the showers are goddamn good. He’ll never miss communal showers, that’s for fucking sure. </p><p>It’s a room and it’s theirs and there are no bars and they can piss at all hours of the night in the ensuite if it so pleases them and they can go to bed whenever they fucking want but Tony knows behind all his bravado that he’ll be there at 10 pm sharp because that was the way it was. He knows he doesn’t have to, but he also knows he will.</p><p>The kid is just sitting on the bed when Tony comes out of the bathroom. He’s staring out at the room and looking kind of funny. Maybe even ill.</p><p>“Kid?” Tony prompts him.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>And he goes to take his own shower. </p><p>Tony stops him before he can go past. “You alright?”</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p> </p><p>But he’s fucking not, because at somewhere around 2 am he’s waking Tony up because he’s crying in his sleep.</p><p>And, goddamn. Goddamn.</p><p>Tony sits up in bed and turns on a lamp and looks over at him. He’s clutching at the bedsheets beside him and crying and crying. Kind of sobbing. It’s quiet but it’s definitely happening. But he’s clumsy, he’s asleep.</p><p>So he’s dreaming. Dreaming about something or someone who he’s clutching at like they’re the only thing he has left in the world.</p><p>Peter has been through shit but he hasn’t cried about it, not ever. His goddamn spleen ruptured and he tried to walk it off. So Tony doesn’t know what to do.</p><p>He listens to the crying and then he decides that it’s too awful to listen to any more and he goes over to the kid’s bed and shakes him.</p><p>Well, he wakes Peter up alright. The kid shoots up and grabs Tony’s forearms and pushes them away before he’s even opened his eyes. Tony stumbles back. There’s silence as they both try and figure out what the hell is going on.</p><p>Peter blinks and blinks and looks up at Tony and then suddenly bolts towards the bathroom. He locks the door behind him.</p><p>Tony doesn’t know what the fuck to think. He does the first thing he can think of: he goes to the door and knocks on it, but softly.</p><p>“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything.”</p><p>Nothing but some shuffling around behind the door.</p><p>“Come on, kid. At least just come out and get back in bed. If you don’t wanna talk, that’s fine. Just get some goddamn sleep.” </p><p>Still, silence. Tony can’t help but feel a little pissed that the kid isn’t even trying to put him at ease.</p><p>“What, are you gonna stay in there forever?” he says a little louder.</p><p>“Leave me alone.” </p><p>It doesn’t even sound like Peter. It sounds broken.</p><p>Tony doesn’t leave, but he shuts up.</p><p>Then come more sobs. </p><p>It’s worse because you know the kid’s aware of them. He’s trying to stop them, too; he’ll suck in his breath and the sob comes out all strangled and even louder. </p><p>Tony’s getting really fucking depressed listening to it. It makes him wonder how many of Peter’s smiles are actually fake. Tony knows the art of blustering, knows it intimately. Is that all there is to the kid’s good moods?</p><p>He comes out a little later and his eyes are red, of course. He looks like he’d been watching a massacre in that bathroom.</p><p>Tony hands him his notebook. Before he can get all defensive, he says, “I promise I didn’t look at it. Didn’t even open it. I just thought you might like to write about it.”</p><p>At that, Peter smiles just a little.</p><p>He says <em> yeah, okay, yeah, </em> and wipes at his eyes and takes the book and goes and sits at the table and scribbles something down.</p><p>That’s one of the most incredible things about the kid. He just <em> writes. </em>He turns it on like a tap, like an eternally flowing fountain.</p><p>Tony thinks about him. He thinks about <em> I’m innocent. </em> He thinks, <em> how? </em></p><p> </p><p> Tony’s driving them again that morning and they’re on a dusty two-lane road out in the middle of fucking nowhere. These are the best parts to drive through. Nobody around.</p><p>That’s when he finally asks the kid what he’s wanted to ask forever. </p><p>“What really was your crime, kid?”</p><p>The kid contemplates this with a whole lot of sincerity. Tony can see him thinking and thinking and thinking. Something’s making him sad, too, real sad. It takes maybe thirty seconds of silence, but he starts to talk.</p><p>“Me and my--” he cocks his head habitually, stutters, then goes on-- “My partner, we loved each other stupid. We were in it deep. We knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, but… nobody else wanted that. People found out. So we ran away.”</p><p>Tony hasn’t heard any of this before. He’s hardly even watching the road. He’s watching the kid and the sightless way he’s looking out at the horizon.</p><p>“We drove to the state border, stayed in a couple of motels.”</p><p><em> Motels. </em> The kid crying in the night in the motel.</p><p>“We were shit-scared in all reality,” Peter says with a laugh that makes Tony raise his eyebrows at the incongruity of it, “But it didn’t matter too much because we were together. We even got married. We - I mean, not really. We just made it up. We were just kids pretending. But it didn’t even matter. We loved each other so much.”</p><p>The kid says it with the tone of a preacher.</p><p>“We were all ready to get away the next day, try and find someplace where people would smile when they saw us in the street, not spit.”</p><p>Then he hesitates. He holds his forehead in his hand. </p><p>“And there’s this shot in the night, while we’re in bed. I didn’t know what the hell was going on to begin with. And I look to my side, and… someone’s hit my partner. Clean shot to the temple. </p><p>“The guy who did it, he’s all shadowy in the doorway. I never even got a good look at him. I had a revolver in my nightstand, and that’s how it all went to shit. I didn’t use it, I just pointed it at the fucker and he ran, but they found it at the crime scene. My fingerprints. Evidence I was the killer. They really thought I killed my own Joey.”</p><p>“Joey?” Tony’s confused but conversational. “That’s a real peculiar name for a woman.” </p><p>Peter stops. He looks at Tony.</p><p>“Joey wasn’t a woman, Tony.”</p><p>Tony's ears start ringing and ringing and ringing.</p><p>
  <em> Peter’s eyes grew hard. “Well, I didn’t do it.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Kid seems touchy.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “No. I want you to get me a ring.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What was it like? My boys are all dying to know.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Quit asking about it,” Peter grit out. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Rita Hayworth, kid." Tony indicated her on the projection. "Is she not exciting enough for you?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I just - I'd prefer to take a break outside. I don't know." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I really am indebted to you, Tony." The kid got serious again. "For stepping in and keeping what went on to yourself.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He seemed oblivious to the charms of pretty girls. Maybe this was why he didn’t talk about his mysterious wife. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Who’s Monroe?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “He was… just a good friend of mine. He would’ve liked to see this.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “It’s my goddamn notebook.” Peter’s face dropped in an instant then. “What did you see?” he demanded. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Tony kept on joking in the way he often did. “Some lovey-dovey shit. Is your imaginary girl actually real? Or is this just more playing pretend?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “No. It’s nothing. Shut up.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "How did it feel when the Ravagers were fucking you?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Shut the fuck up. You can't talk about it." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I’m not queer or anything like that, you know,” Tony goes on, “I’d never…” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Yeah. No. Uh, thank you.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Boys don’t fucking behave in that way. </em>
</p><p>Tony brakes so hard they both jerk forward. He gets out of the car.</p><p>“What are we doing?” Peter says, sounding as if he knows but he doesn’t want to be right.</p><p>Tony doesn’t even know what he’s fucking doing. He can’t think. Everything’s red. Red tablecloth. He let this man out of prison and he ran away with him and he’s been <em> friends </em> with him for six motherfucking years.</p><p>
  <em> You might as well fuck another man. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Shut up. That’s fucking disgusting, Faith. </em>
</p><p>He goes round to Peter’s side and opens his door and says, “Get out of the car.” </p><p>“Why?” </p><p>He doesn’t bother to convince him further. He just starts walking away into the fields. He walks like the devil’s at his heels. That’s sort of the case.</p><p>“Tony, what are you doing?” Peter calls behind him. He’s getting closer. “Don’t you understand? I thought you’d understand.” </p><p>Then he’s in front of Tony and he yells right in his face: “Holy - fuck! My only crime was loving my husband!”</p><p><em> My husband. </em> </p><p>Tony’s never seen the kid so angry, so impassioned, so hurt.</p><p>It’s fucking terrifying.</p><p>“Joey. That’s why you hid the poetry? It was him you were writing about?” </p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“The ring. Your goddamn ring. Monroe. Was he Monroe? The <em> friend?”  </em></p><p>“Yes.” </p><p>“Who you were crying over last night?” </p><p>Peter’s red-faced and his hair is in his eyes. He’s shaking. “Fuck you.”</p><p>
  <em> Goddamn. Jesus Christ. Fucking hell. Mother of God. Fuck. </em>
</p><p>Tony drags both of his hands through his scalp. “Fucking shit. You sure tried your best to reel me in, didn’t you? With your little sob story? Your <em> partner? </em>Jesus Christ, kid. All this time?” </p><p>Peter gets quieter then. “You’re a good man, Tony, you have to understand me.” It reminds Tony of Faith, of her pouting and murmuring. Fuck that.</p><p>“We’re neither of us good men. Get that into your goddamn brain. You’re not even a man, you were still a kid - what, eighteen? Seventeen? And running off with <em> your Joey?” </em>  Tony puts out a finger and jabs Peter's chest. “You were delusional.” </p><p>“I was in <em> love!” </em> Peter shouts.</p><p>That’s too much. That’s too fucking much.</p><p>“Wake up. Love means fuck-all in this world. And love like that, that’s not love.” </p><p>“Don’t fuck with me, Tony.” Peter’s fisting his hands in front of him now, looking distraught. “I loved him. I did. I did, more than anything. Love might mean nothing to you, but it meant everything to me. It still does. I’m still going on loving, and it’s going on breaking my heart, you’re breaking my heart!”</p><p>He stops. </p><p>“But I love you. I - shit. You’re the father I never got.”</p><p>Tony recoils. His ribcage is rotting from the core of his heart outwards. The breath has been stolen from him. He’s been betrayed by the one person he thought he could trust, the one person in the entire goddamn world he thought was truly good.</p><p>That’s why he gets real close to Peter and tells him, “I’m not your father, kid, and you sure as hell ain’t no son of mine.” </p><p>Peter just stands there.</p><p>The sun beats down upon them. Dust rears up beneath their feet though they're still right now.</p><p>Tony reels. That autopsy is jammed in his mind, the son that wasn’t his but might as well have been, the son that might at least have lived.</p><p>Who is he kidding? It doesn’t even fucking matter. That son would have grown up to be a dickhead or a pansy one way or another. He would have fucked women and been rude and rough about it, or he would’ve fucked men and gone to hell. He’d get a wife who only cheated on him, or he’d be alone and depressed forever.</p><p>“What about the Ravagers?” Tony asks as if he’s making friendly conversation. “Did they know?” </p><p>“No, of course not.” </p><p>“Did you ask them for it?” </p><p>“What the fuck?” And now Peter’s full of bitter rage. “No, Tony! If a - if a gang of women pinned you down and forced themselves into you, would you enjoy it just because they were female? It was torture, fucking torture. I can't believe you'd even say that. I - God.”</p><p>He stops and starts. Tony doesn’t know why he’s giving him the time of day to talk. Mostly because he still doesn’t know what the fuck to do.</p><p>“I belong to Joey, whether he’s here or gone, and I didn’t want them doing the things only we’d done together. I hated it." </p><p>"You don't belong to nobody, kid.” Tony steps in. He’s quiet but he’s fucking angry. “Your fake marriage, your boy, they meant shit, and you know why? Because you're sick." </p><p>Peter burns. "You can't fucking talk, you killed your own goddamn wife!”</p><p>Tony staggers back as if Peter’s hit him. It feels like he has. Like he’s swung a cannonball right into the tender parts of Tony’s chest. Like he’s obliterated the last place he hid his reserves of love.</p><p>Tony’s got no love left for anyone.</p><p>“You don’t get it,” Peter’s saying more softly. “I thought you’d get it.” He hardly even looks angry now. Just sad.</p><p>“Well, I thought I got you, and look where we are now. You could’ve at least kept your fucking mouth shut and we could’ve made it out of here together.” Tony’s running words together, he’s talking himself senseless. He stops then says, “You know, out of everyone in that place, I thought you were the only one worth saving. I was damn stupid.” </p><p>“That’s ridiculous, Tony, and you know it. I’m a criminal, you’re a criminal, we're both bad men, sure. That makes us the same.” </p><p>“You and I are not the same. We’re very, very different.”</p><p>Tony knows what he wants to do now.</p><p>He starts running.</p><p>Peter calls after him again but he doesn’t even listen. He runs to the Thunderbird and locks the doors when he’s in and starts the car and it roars to life and Peter’s running towards him and he’s fast but not fast enough as Tony pulls away and he screams after Tony but Tony shuts his ears and the last Tony sees of him is him sinking to his knees at the roadside with his hands gripping his hair and his cap on the ground. His stupid blue cap. The stupid fucking car Tony got in blue for him. </p><p>He doesn't even know if he wants to leave but he does.</p><p>Fuck. All this time? All this time.</p><p>
  <em> Boys don’t fucking behave in that way. </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>OKAY. I know I know I know but here's the thing:<br/>In the 1950s, *the majority of people thought this way.* Tony grew up in a pretty conservative and abusive household (which will be fleshed out a little in the next chapter) where propriety was stressed and any friendly contact between boys was forbidden: 'boys don't fucking behave in that way.' Of course, this does NOT excuse his homophobic behaviour. I do not condone homophobia in any form. It just gives it a little more context. In order to make a big change, people have to begin in the wrong direction. Tony is about to make a big change. This is a story of his growth. He begins in some pretty bad places emotionally, physically, mentally, and he learns to fix things and get better. This plot point is not the end! There are chapters and decisions to come!<br/>My profile is a safe space for anyone who identifies as LGBTQ+ or questioning, always has been and always will be. I am addressing issues to do with opinions that are far from my own. This is a fictional story. It will be a story with a happy ending. </p><p>This is also the perfect place to shake me violently and yell at me for the angst I've piled upon our boys, so feel free to do that in the comments!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>DON'T WORRY IT GETS BETTER PLEASE KEEP READING<br/>:)<br/>I'm releasing super early because I couldn't wait!! I want you guys to get to this next part!!! And here it is :) hope you enjoy my loves!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>Sometimes I feel like nothing’s right.</p><p>Sometimes I feel like nothing’s right.</p><p>Sometimes I feel like nothing’s right.</p><p>Sometimes I feel like nothing’s right.</p><p>
  <em> --Birdtalker </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Tony tries to tear the steering wheel out of the car but he can’t do it. There are still Pall Malls in the duffel bag full of stuff on the backseat. Peter’s poetry book is there somewhere. Tony doesn’t want to look at it.</p><p>There’s nothing to do now he’s the only one in the car. It’s just him and the dusty road and it’s fucking boring. No, not boring. Terrifying.</p><p>He’s alone. That’s it.</p><p>Tony’s heart starts to hammer on his ribs real fast, like it’s knocking, like it needs to get out, and he thinks maybe he’s having a heart attack so he pulls over. He knows he’s far enough away that Peter can’t see him so he can stop. He leans over the wheel and tries to breathe but he can’t for a while. If he dies now, it’d be a hell of a way to go out. That’s what he thinks.</p><p>His heart dicks around and goes way too fucking fast for a long time but then it’s sort of alright again and Tony can think and breathe okay so he just keeps driving.</p><p>What the hell else is he supposed to do?</p><p>And then he starts to think about it. Crossing the border to Mexico alone. Starting anew alone. Living alone. Going grocery shopping alone. Sitting on his porch alone. </p><p>He never even thought much about what he’d do in Mexico. All he ever thought about was getting out of there and taking the kid with him. And now that’s gone to shit, there’s not much left.</p><p>Just - God. He's just left Peter.</p><p>There are two Peters in his mind, he thinks. One he knows and one he doesn't know at all. Six years and the kid never bothered to tell him.</p><p>
  <em> Bend over, Tony. </em>
</p><p>Tony was six. His father pulled his belt from its loops.</p><p><em> He just made a mistake, </em> his mother said.</p><p>
  <em> And he needs to learn from that mistake. Boys don’t fucking behave in that way. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m sorry, father. </em>
</p><p><em> You'll be sorry, </em> said his father between lashes.</p><p>His mother sometimes tried to stick up for him. <em> I'm sure it meant nothing. He was--  </em></p><p>The belt cracked.</p><p>
  <em> He was just being friendly.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Kissing other boys is not friendly. Do you hear me, Tony? You never do that. You'll go to hell if you do that. Do you want to go to hell? </em>
</p><p>Tony had been crying a whole lot. He had his face against the kitchen table and he was dripping snot onto it. <em> No. </em></p><p>This wasn't out of the ordinary by a long stretch, not in his family or in anyone else's. This was just what happened. This was the way kids were disciplined. And it worked pretty fucking well.</p><p>For as long as he could remember, Tony has been stopping himself from holding people.</p><p>He's driving as he thinks this. Then, all he can think is, <em> why? </em></p><p>Is he still siding with his old man? The man who used to sit in his car and watch Tony come out of school and criticise the way he interacted with his friends when he got in to be taken home? The man who taught Tony to drink and smoke like his life depended on it? The man who once beat him over absolutely <em> nothing? </em></p><p>
  <em> Father? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Bend over, Tony. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What are you doing? I haven't fucking done anything wrong! </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That's not the problem. The problem is that you can't do anything right. </em>
</p><p>Fuck him. Fuck him. Tony couldn't get away from him fast enough.</p><p>Now, he's just sad. He's never been so depressed. He’s devastatingly solitary. He thinks about all the suicides he used to lull himself to sleep with in prison and how easy it would be now to just stop living. </p><p>He thinks about Ben. Ben works his way into his mind and lodges himself there. <em> Live for me, </em>Peter had told him. Did he?</p><p>The whole time he was planning his escape, Tony had been shit-scared he'd end up like the guys who can't cope on the outside, and now that's exactly what's happening. Fucking hell.</p><p>Tony <em> escaped </em>and now he's just going to waste it?</p><p>He needs… he needs a cigarette. Maybe a whole pack of them. But he can't reach the duffel bag without starting to veer off the road, he needs someone to get it for him. He stops the car and goes round to the backseat and gets a pack and puts it in his jacket pocket. He tries not to think about how fucking depressing it is that he couldn't get his cigarette and that the kid would have fetched it and lit it for him and probably smiled at him.</p><p>It kind of hits Tony then that Peter had done all that and he'd been homosexual too. He'd been queer but still good.</p><p>The sky is darkening before Tony; he switches on the Thunderbird’s headlights. It’s late afternoon. In a few hours it’ll be evening, then night, and it’ll be dark and Tony will have nobody. He’s a pussy to be scared of that, but he really is.</p><p>And - fucking hell, what’s the kid gonna do? </p><p>Tony feels like a class-A piece of shit. Peter’s got no money, no supplies, no fucking identification. Tony left him in the fucking dust. And here he was, worrying about himself.</p><p>Without his permission, Tony’s brain makes up this image of him and Faith in bed together and a gunshot waking Tony up and him turning to her and her being dead. And how fucked-up that would make him feel. And how much he would cry. And he doesn’t even know if he loved Faith. And fucking, fucking, <em> fucking Christ. </em> He <em> killed </em>Faith.</p><p>Tony brakes again, only it’s just him who jerks forward in his seat this time. Because he fucking abandoned the only person he had left. Tony, a fucking murderer, acting like he was better than the kid.</p><p>
  <em> “You and I are not the same. We’re very, very different.” </em>
</p><p>Bullshit. They’ve both committed crimes, and that’s it. </p><p>And yet, he was sort of right. Peter is different to him because his crime is love. Tony’s is hate. He fell in love with a man; Tony killed a woman. </p><p>Tony had been in a haze, a haze of his father’s anger and his own frustration at the way the world fucks with him and also quite a lot of fear. Fear of people hiding shit from him. Fear of losing them on their terms and not his.</p><p>And that’s the most goddamn stupid thing Tony’s ever heard.</p><p>Peter is different to him because no matter what he does he will be good at his core. That's how he is. Maybe, for once in his shitty life, Tony should give that a try. Being good. </p><p>Tony gets out of the car. He walks back and forth. He stops. There are different fields around him. He’s been driving for a few hours, but he doesn’t have to keep going. That’s what he knows now. He’s free and he can do what he wants. He can go back.</p><p>He walks back to the car. He gets in. He starts it up decisively. He thinks of lighting another Marlboro but doesn’t bother. He breathes in and out a good few times.</p><p>He makes a U-turn and goes to get the goddamn kid.</p><p> </p><p>Peter hadn’t waited for him.</p><p>Tony goes back to where he’s sure they had their big fucking argument and he’s not there. Tony maybe starts to get panicked but he doesn’t think about it. He drives around and finds the nearest settlement and asks around but nobody’s seen a short young man wearing denim and a cap. He takes a left turn in the Thunderbird and tries the next village. No luck.</p><p>What if the kid’s ended his life or something?</p><p>No, Tony doesn’t think he’d ever do that. He’s just thinking crazy.</p><p>But someone’s seen him in the third place he finds.</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Yes, I have.”</p><p>“Where was he headed?”</p><p>“Straight down the main road. I think Slatter has him.”</p><p>
  <em> Has him? </em>
</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>“Yeah. Have fun.”</p><p>And that was a pretty fucking wacky interaction but Tony isn’t focused on that.</p><p>God, he feels like a monster now. It’s all coming back to him. <em> You sure tried your best to reel me in, didn’t you </em> and <em> you were delusional </em> and <em> that’s not love </em> and <em> you sure as hell ain’t no son of mine </em> and <em> did you ask them for it </em> and <em> you're sick. </em> Tony’s sick. Tony feels sick.</p><p>He walks fast down the main road but nobody’s out. It’s close to dark now. Maybe Tony’s fucked up and he can’t go back. He couldn’t go back with Faith, why should he get a second chance now?</p><p>But a door’s opening on his left, on one of the terraced places, and a young man stumbles out and it’s <em> Peter. </em> </p><p>Something’s wrong with Peter. His cap is in his hand and his hair is sticking up all wrong and he walks like he’s not sure if the ground he’s on is real, like he’s wondering if he himself is real. He hasn’t noticed Tony. He just steps out of the house and stops in his tracks and stands there like a dead thing.</p><p>“Kid!”</p><p>The kid looks at him. Instantly, something darkens in him. Tony’s heart is rushing again.</p><p>At first he just continues to stand there while Tony approaches him. Then he starts to back away.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>Tony starts to run. This time, he’s running towards the kid, not away. Peter’s still walking steadily away, his back to Tony. Tony grabs his arm from behind but the kid wrenches it right out of his grip without missing a beat.</p><p>Something overtakes Tony then, something that’s the opposite of his earlier rage and the same as it at the same time. This is his one and only chance to fix his fuck-up now. Peter being homosexual or whatever shit isn’t on the plate. It’s just Peter.</p><p>He turns the kid around by grabbing his jacket collar and takes both his arms this time. Peter tries to get out of his grip. He lets go of his cap and it gets lost on the ground. He starts thrashing around. He’s really trying to get out.  Tony tries to get his arms further around him but he starts to shove against him, throwing his weight into Tony. </p><p>“Fuck off,” he grits, “I’m working.”</p><p>Tony loses his grip.</p><p>“You’re - working?” he says in disbelief.</p><p>He wants to grab the kid again but he thinks Peter was bothered by it and plus, he’s noticed something. He’s noticed that the kid’s shirt is done up all wrong. Buttons in the wrong holes.</p><p>“Kid, you might wanna… do up your shirt again.”</p><p>Peter doesn’t say anything but he tucks his head into his chest and re-buttons the shirt and it makes Tony remember him buttoning his pants in the film room and what had just happened.</p><p>Then he starts to walk away again. He sort of just drifts off and he’s still neatening the shirt he must have taken off and then he straightens his messy hair that someone must have touched.</p><p>And <em> fuck. </em></p><p>And he’s losing the kid again.</p><p>“Kid,” Tony says again, not knowing how to talk about this.</p><p>Peter actually stops. </p><p>He turns a little and fishes some money out of his pocket. It only confirms what Tony had thought. What he was just doing in that house.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he says in a way that makes Tony know it isn’t okay in the slightest. “Look, I made twenty dollars.”</p><p>“Fucking hell, kid--” </p><p>Peter’s hurt then. He says, “Don’t call me <em> kid. </em> I’m not your kid, you made that very clear.”</p><p>Tony’s fucked up so bad. Goddamnit.</p><p>They’re maybe eight feet away from each other and the evening is quiet as if it knows what’s happening is important. </p><p>Tony takes a step forward and spreads his arms. “Listen to me. I messed up and I want to make it right, okay?”</p><p>“Nothing’s right.” And the kid sounds so broken when he says it. Broken enough that maybe he’ll never get fixed. He’s withering before Tony. Tony’s never seen him like this before.</p><p>“You are. You were right, Peter. You’re a good man.” He says it and he fucking means it.</p><p>“No,” Peter says, and it’s soft and splintered and he goes over to the wall of the house and puts his arm against it and then thumps his head onto his arm and he’s breaking Tony’s heart.</p><p>Tony was wrong. Of course he has room for love. Maybe there’s no space for another wife, but there’s space for a son that he never used up and always wanted to. This isn’t that, it’s different, everything’s different to the way it would be in paradise, but of course this isn’t paradise. Tony knows that more than a lot of the bastards he meets. So maybe he can change that space and make it fit. As long as Peter’s alive, he’ll be there in Tony’s stupid heart, that’s for sure, and Tony knows that now.</p><p>“You are, you’re a good man,” he insists, but Peter still won’t look right at him.</p><p>Tony walks up to him and he doesn’t move away.</p><p>The kid looks up for just a moment, eyes fixed around Tony’s collarbone. “If I am, then why am I so alone?”</p><p>That really hurts Tony. He runs out of words for a moment.</p><p>“Look - don't say that shit, don’t be like that.”</p><p>Finally, he’s looked in the eye, and Peter’s eyes are full of the most unimaginable melancholy. Behind it, inexplicably, is hope. Fucking hope. He’s had hope from the beginning, from the very first time Tony laid eyes on him. Somehow, he’s still got some. That’s what Tony needs him to have right now.</p><p>He gets round to apologising. That’s what he does. He just stands there in front of the kid and apologises and tries to make it alright.</p><p>“I shouldn't have driven away, no matter what you’d said. I’m sorry that I… betrayed your trust like that. And--”</p><p>This is the hard part, but it’s the part he’s really convinced the kid needs to hear most.</p><p>“I may not be able to understand why you feel the way you do, why you did what you did, but I do know that I was wrong. Out of any of the motherfuckers I’ve met in this world, you’re one of the best. You <em> are </em> a good man. And I wanna go to Mexico with you, or wherever we decide. Fucking - Costa Rica or wherever. But - yeah. I promise I’ll take you there. I’ll stick with you. I won’t be a flaky son of a bitch anymore.”</p><p>While he talked, Tony had been watching Peter hanging on to his words. He’d seen his eyes brighten until moisture blurred all the awful shit behind it. Now the kid drops all of a sudden and slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the sidewalk and he says, “Oh, fuck. Fuck.” He says it like he’s drowning and wants to say something but doesn’t know what.</p><p>This shudder runs through him that Tony can actually feel. Now Tony’s just standing over him while he’s crouched on the ground and falling apart.</p><p>“I really thought you were gone, Tony, you know?” says the kid all thickly and crookedly. “That was - that was it. That’s what I thought.” </p><p>"I know,” says Tony like a world-class dickhead.</p><p>Peter puts his head in his hands and sort of gasps. It’s the fucking film room all over again. The little gasping noises, like he can’t breathe.</p><p>Tony’s felt that. Tony’s felt that. </p><p>And at first he doesn’t have a fucking clue what to do with this kid breaking down in front of him but then it becomes so goddamn obvious he’s confused as to why he hasn’t done it yet.</p><p>“Just - come here, kid." </p><p>And he pulls Peter up, but gently. And he wraps his arms around him.</p><p>“Come here,” he says again. </p><p>The kid hesitates for a few seconds before Tony feels his arms close around his back, hastily, fervently. They’re lucky it’s mostly dark and nobody’s around because it might look pretty strange. But then again, does it even fucking matter?</p><p>This is really it. This is holding someone. </p><p>"Never pull that shit again, okay, Tony?” Peter’s murmuring. “Please never do that again."</p><p>He’s shaking, he’s really shaking around Tony’s grip, but Tony doesn’t think he’s a pussy at all for it. He’s been through shit. He gets to shake and cry and gasp and go to pieces.</p><p>"I won't,” he says and he means it and he’s sincere. “That was a big fuck-up on my part."</p><p>"I mean - goddamn, I sucked a guy's dick and now this?"</p><p>Somehow, that’s really funny. </p><p>Everything starts to become funny then. They both start up laughing, and then they can’t stop. They’re guffawing like motherfucking idiots. They’re probably waking up the pervert Peter just visited. Fucking A.</p><p>They’re still holding one another, Peter’s face stuck into Tony’s neck so his laughs blow hot air onto his skin. It’s sort of strange and comforting. The kid’s shaking more with laughter than shock now, so that’s good.</p><p>"We can get something real special with that money if you’d like,” he says eventually. “Or, conversely, we could fucking burn it and never look at it again.”</p><p>Because that’s what Tony wants to do to whatever in Peter’s brain might tell him that sucking people's dicks is all he’s good for. That he’s not goddamn brilliant, because he is.</p><p>"Can we get another brandy?" Peter asks and pulls out of the hug a little. Tony lets it happen. He figures he should start letting the kid have more of a say about shit.</p><p>"If that's what you wanna do with your pimp money, okay."</p><p>It’s meant to be a joke but it’s kind of awkward and it falls flat.</p><p>Peter smiles anyway. He palms at his eyes, getting rid of the wetness there. "Hey. I worked hard."</p><p>"No doubt you did.” </p><p>The blue cap is still on the ground; he picks it up, brushes it off, holds it out to the kid. “Hey, here you are.”</p><p>When Peter puts it on he looks almost happy, and goddamn if that doesn’t make Tony pretty happy too.</p><p>“Let's get back on the road, huh?” he suggests. “Get some water in you. I’ll find a motel and you can rest up."</p><p>He finds himself in another hug then. Peter holds him real tight for a couple of seconds and just says, "Thank you."</p><p>Tony sighs.</p><p>"You're good."</p><p>They’re standing apart again, but Tony puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder and starts to guide him along with it. He looks at Peter’s face and even in the dark he thinks he can tell the kid likes that he’s still holding him a little.</p><p>Tony thinks, <em> holy shit. </em>That shouldn’t have been so easy, right?</p><p>That's Peter. He's love. He's forgiveness.</p><p>Now they’re together neither of them need to run anywhere so they just walk back up the high street. It’s just them in the dim light of dusk, walking back to the Thunderbird. Walking home together.</p><p> </p><p>Because it’s so dark and cold now, they pull up the roof before heading back off to find the closest place to stay.</p><p>The kid downs a bottle of water in two minutes. He sits back in his seat and closes his eyes and looks pretty wiped out. But then there’s this little smile Tony sees on him.</p><p>"Penny for your thoughts?" Tony asks him.</p><p>Peter blows a breath in and out and says, "Just - thinking about how much of a relief this is. You know, you're the only person I've ever told who hasn't just... left for good. I feel like I've got a future. Something to look forward to."</p><p>The words seem to be nothing to the kid, but they’re fucking razor blades to Tony.</p><p>What the hell would have happened if he hadn’t turned around and got him back?</p><p>"You know what?” Tony says into the silence. “I'm not done saying sorry."</p><p>"Tony, it's fine.”</p><p>But he’s resolute. "No, it's not. I’m sorry that I was such a dick to you and I’m sorry I said all the shit that I did. I'm sorry I left. I'm really fucking sorry. I won't ever stop being sorry for that. It was rash and crazy and it made us both feel like shit so that was just a bad idea.”</p><p>Peter laughs just a little. “It kind of was, I guess.”</p><p>“I'm also sorry for asking about the Ravagers in such a fucked-up way when I came out of the hole. Yes, I wasn't in my right mind, but I'm sorry anyway. And I'm sorry for turning a blind eye back when that was happening."</p><p>"There wasn't anything you could've done,” the kid tells him, much quieter.</p><p>"But there was. When I stepped in, they got transferred."</p><p>Peter puts his hands between his thighs. Tony sees the Peter of six years ago trying to protect himself from the Ravagers staring at him in the cafeteria.</p><p>"It was just because my spleen got fucked up," he says.</p><p>"I'm still sorry."</p><p>"Can we stop talking about it?"</p><p>The kid’s tense, he notices.</p><p>Silence rests over them for a little while. But Tony’s a free man and that means he has to take responsibility for doing the things he does. He can’t just do whatever the fuck he wants. He has to do the <em> right </em> things.</p><p>"Kid."</p><p>"Hm?" Peter says, looking across at him.</p><p>Tony doesn’t have the balls to glance back. In fact, he feels pretty averse to talking about this at all. But he thinks it’ll be helpful for both him and Peter.</p><p>"What was Joey like?"</p><p>“Oh,” says Peter, and it sounds as if he’d never expect Tony to have asked that in a million years. Maybe he has a point.</p><p>He doesn’t say anything for a long time but Tony still doesn’t look at him. It’s then that Tony realises it's probably the first time anyone has asked him about Joey. It’s got to be. So it’s the first time Peter’s been allowed to talk about his partner. </p><p>That’s pretty fucking hard.</p><p>Eventually, what comes out of the kid’s mouth is, “He was an idiot.”</p><p>A laugh comes out of Tony unbidden.</p><p>“He was. He would wrestle with people for no goddamn reason. He sometimes followed people to draw them and he couldn’t see what was wrong with that at first. He was always buying soda and he was really sensitive to the bubbles for whatever reason but he’d be talking or drawing or looking at someone and he’d forget and start choking on it. But he was never dumb about bringing an extra hat. I’d always forget a hat when it got cold and he’d have one tucked away.”</p><p>
  <em> “Here you are, you little dumbass.” </em>
</p><p><em> “Your hands are so warm. Goddamn.” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “I think you’re actually cold-blooded. Hey, I’ll warm your big ears.” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em>“</em> <em>Shut up.”</em></p><p><em> “It’s warm, though?” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “ </em> <em> Real warm. Mm. Thanks, baby.” </em></p><p>There’s a warmth that fills the car as he talks.</p><p>“He also had the habit of flying into a rage whenever someone fucked with anyone he liked. So, uh, you can guess that he got angry on my behalf pretty often. Actually, when a couple of my friends saw us walking down the street together, they started to talk shit about us. You know.”</p><p>
  <em> "How much did he pay you, Parker? Enough for your own bedroom at last? Or are you still sleeping with your mother too?" </em>
</p><p>“And he wanted to hit them, I could tell, but he couldn’t because then they’d have everything to use against us. And this one guy - Jerry, that was his name; God, Jerry - he kind of grabbed me and he was making fun of the sort of things he thought me and Joey were doing, kind of - pretending to do them to me.”</p><p>
  <em> "Is this what it's like? Rough and steamy? Do you feel like an animal?" </em>
</p><p>“And Joey was screaming like the world was ending or something.”</p><p>
  <em> "Don't fucking touch him!" </em>
</p><p>Peter shuts his mouth real fast. “I’m sorry. I sort of started sharing and forgot to stop.”</p><p>“It’s alright.” And Tony’s feeling a lot of sadness but also a lot of happiness. He decides that bringing up what the kid just talked about would be a bad idea, so he just says, “He sounds… nice.”</p><p>It’s an awkward effort, but Peter flits a smile over to him for it all the same.</p><p>“The nicest. He just - I think he thought I was the best person ever. I mean, that’s what I thought about him. When we were on the run and we managed to forget that we were running in the first place, those are some of my favourite memories. We went from motel to motel, kind of like what we’re doing now, heading south. Actually, we were pretty close by here when everything... got fucked up.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>There’s an idea in Tony’s mind.</p><p>“Yeah. I managed to hide some of our stuff before the cops came in, so - I don’t know. Maybe somebody will find it someday and wonder about us.”</p><p>“What about tomorrow?”</p><p>“...tomorrow?”</p><p>“Us. Tomorrow. Why don’t we go?”</p><p>Peter looks at him. There’s so much going on Tony feels dizzy just watching it. Trepidation and excitement and grief and longing and bitterness and hope, hope. Of course, hope.</p><p>“It’s not like we don’t have the time, right?” Tony goes on when the kid is silent.</p><p>“That would be… really good. I think.”</p><p>“You think?”</p><p>“Yeah. Wow. You’d do that?”</p><p>Tony looks at himself for a moment and he sees the him of six years ago who absolutely wouldn’t. The him of twenty-two years ago wouldn’t either. But would the Tony of today take the kid to a motel in Bumfuck, Tennessee to get back some sentimental objects from his homosexual lover from six years ago? Fuck yes.</p><p>“I suppose I would.”<br/><br/></p><p>So they stop off at another motel and this time either Peter doesn’t start up crying in his sleep or Tony sleeps too soundly to hear it. The kid does seem more at peace. It makes sense; the demons of six years ago had been stuck within him for long enough. He’s only let out a few of them, but Tony thinks the rest will come. </p><p>They both have time to let shit out now. That’s what they have to remember.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>it's okay!!! i didn't make tony an asshole for too long right?? no more homophobia okay :)<br/>Feel free to express your relief in the comments!<br/>FOLKS wish me luck i have a short film on saturday and i can't believe my life. also a casting from back in march has come back so i'm praying it's a sign and that i'll become a MoVie STaR pray/send good wishes that the right opportunities are opened to me please!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here! Have 6k of self-indulgent backstory and hopefulness and bonding!!! I figure y'all won't mind after the hell of the last few chapters hehe<br/>My Tumblr: notaparty-trick</p><p>Trigger warning: homophobic abuse and language; description of Joey's death</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>So when life shits on my head</p><p>I mix it in my flowerbed</p><p>‘Cause what the hell did I expect? </p><p>
  <em> --Birdtalker, Towards the Sun </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Peter starts to get real quiet the moment they walk in the door of the motel. They book room 18 for the day because the owner is a stingy dick and won’t let them go in for even two minutes without paying. Whatever. At least Tony can spare the money.</p><p>They get in the room and the kid immediately steps away from the door and puts his back against the wall. It’s just a room. A double bed, creaky wood floor, a window with a million cobwebs around it that make it look hazy. Tony thinks it’s more than just a room to Peter.</p><p>“Go on, kid,” he says.</p><p>The first thing the kid does is go to the bed. He puts his hand on the right-hand pillow. For a long time, he’s still. Truthfully, Tony is hovering like a fucking idiot and doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. He just watches Peter while he’s hunched over the bed, staring at the pillow like he can see Joey right there.</p><p>Tony’s in the doorway where the murderer must have been. Joey’s head would have lain right over Peter’s hand.</p><p>Peter gets out their screwdriver. He goes and kneels on the floor and prises up a floorboard. There’s a duffel bag in there, ragged and coated in dust. Peter pulls it out and shakes off the dust but he doesn’t open it yet. </p><p>Tony decides going over and sitting by him would be better than idling around by the door, so he does that. Peter’s face is caught up in something Tony can and can’t understand.</p><p>He exhales, then unzips the bag.</p><p>Instantly, he’s tugging an old, weathered khaki jacket out of it and clutching it to himself and burying his face in it. There’s silence. Tony looks away. It feels wrong to look. There’s something so intimate about it. He hears the muffled sniffs coming from the kid all the same.</p><p>
  <em> Joey and Peter had been fucking around again, wrestling on the sand like they were fifth-graders, not kids of sixteen with responsibilities. Peter laughed, breathless, giddy. Though he managed to worm out of Joey’s grip, he knew as he sprinted to the shoreline he was being pursued.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Then the sea was at him, seeping into his shoes in an instant, and he stumbled. Joey was there when he turned. Peter grabbed his jacket as he reached him and they collided in a tangle of limbs and fell right into the water. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter was wearing denim trousers and a denim jacket and he’d stay wet for a million years wearing them but suddenly he didn’t care anymore because they had rolled over in their chaos and Joey was looking up at him now. His hair was damp. He was close, close enough Peter could see stars in the reflections of his irises. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> My starwalker </em>
</p><p>
  <em> My endless ever-expanding galaxy </em>
</p><p>
  <em> My Jupiter </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Swirling with a brilliant orange passion </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I can’t turn away from </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> And suddenly Peter’s heart was crawling up his throat and all he knew was that if he didn’t kiss Joey then he might never breathe again. He might get lost in the waves. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But maybe Joey would think he was a faggot. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But Joey bobbed up towards him. His chin jutted out and he looked stupid and he was wonderful. Peter shuffled about and didn’t know how to do it. He grabbed Joey’s shoulder and tried to ask him but his heart was still stuck in his throat like a cork. The sea roared behind them. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey was looking and looking and looking at Peter. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I miss you staring at me like nobody’s goddamn business. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Look again-- </em>
</p><p>
  <em> look alive, goddamnit, look with eyes that love, not </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the dead orbs that I see in my nightmares. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Never take them off me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I want those eyes forever, don’t you understand? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I want them painted, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> immortalised-- </em>
</p><p>
  <em> you who stared at me like nobody’s goddamn business. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Who loved like a fucking moron. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You were </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the best of the universe. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> My sun. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> My bright eyes. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Joey lifted his hands up and held Peter’s face in them. Warm and electric and Joey. Peter was going to turn inside out.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter nodded. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey nodded. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And Peter knew. And that was it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey kissed him. Kissed him and kissed him and kissed him and they tipped over and they lay in the shallows and waves broke over them so there was water in their eyes and hair and nostrils and it wasn’t romantic because they kept choking on it but it didn’t even matter because it was Joey and Peter, their kisses desperate and deep and consuming one another, and that was Joey’s mouth Peter was kissing and Joey’s shoulders Peter was pulling towards him and Joey’s hip he hooked his leg over and he was tugging at Joey’s jacket, the old, weathered khaki one he wore just about everywhere, but it was sodden from the sea and it wouldn’t come off and they started laughing against each other’s lips. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter broke away for half a second to yank it all the way off but a swathe of water got into his mouth instead and he choked. He probably looked like a goddamn idiot sat in the shallows with his hair half-drenched and gagging on the seawater, but Joey just dragged him onto the sand and thumped his back until he cleared it from his throat. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Then it was nothing but them and the beach and the stars. Peter felt drunk. He felt like he’d touched heaven. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He watched Joey watching him. Joey was dripping with seawater and had a small smile stuck on his face. Peter’s heart flipped looking at him. He realised that it had always flipped when he looked at him. He just hadn’t thought about it. He’d also kind of been shit-scared. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey bundled up his jacket against his chest and said with a grin, "So, Parker, how would you like to go to the flicks with me?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "What the hell is that supposed to mean, Joey?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Just askin'." And Joey was laughing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Only if it's a colour movie,” Peter said, being pedantic because he was overwhelmed. “You know I can't stand the black-and-whites."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I know." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They shuffled towards each other as if pulled by a single force, and none of it was perfect. It might have looked dumb as shit to an outsider. Maybe it was, but it was incredible anyway. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I think I love you,” Peter said and it made him as scared as anything to say it but still he said it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey, the piece of shit that he was, just cocked his head and went, "I know I love you."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Don't one-up me, you prick,” Peter griped. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey was pulling at his pants. "Aw, shit, I'm wet as hell."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter went out on a limb and started crooning, saying, "You've never been more tempting, baby." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They laughed uproariously. Really, it wasn’t that funny, but they had a whole lot of mirth in them and also a whole lot of uncertainty. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Me too. We're gross,” Peter said, but everything felt darker all of a sudden. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey looked down. "Peter, what are we gonna do?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> There was silence. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "We're just gonna - I don't know. Let's not tell anyone."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Yeah. I don't - I don't think my parents would like it."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Well, neither would my mom,” Peter said, trying to sound like it was no big deal, because he missed Joey’s grin already. “It's more exciting this way, right?" </em>
</p><p>Peter stays with that old jacket for a long time. It takes a while for Tony to realise that maybe he’s hiding behind it.</p><p>“You’re okay, kid,” he says eventually, softly.</p><p>The kid pulls his face away and of course it’s red and damp but he ducks it to the floor right away and pulls off his own jacket and puts the one Tony presumes to be Joey’s on. There’s a distinctive smell to it even after years stuck beneath the motel floor. Even Tony can tell that. Seaside and cigarette smoke and vanilla.</p><p>Peter’s still hiding his face from Tony so Tony just sets a hand on his shoulder. </p><p>Eventually, Peter goes back into the bag, still sniffing away tears. Tony wonders if he’d cry if he got to hold some of Faith’s old clothes. He thinks he might, but not in this way. Not out of sentimentality or love or longing. Out of bitterness and hatred.</p><p>There’s a mood ring in Peter’s hand now. It’s one of those twenty-cent ones you can get at most local stores, but it might as well be priceless for the way Peter cradles it in his hand. He lets out this little laugh that totally takes Tony by surprise.</p><p>“I, um,” he says quietly, fondly, “I made up this fake proposal. We were getting near to being broke and we were on the run and everything but I thought that if everyone else got to propose, I’d… do it too. So I had this stupid mood ring. And we bent rings out of wire for each other and had a whole made-up marriage ceremony.”</p><p>Wire rings. The ring on Peter’s finger.</p><p>Tony thinks he understands.</p><p>
  <em> "Joey."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Mm."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I have something to ask you. I'd like you to be awake."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey’s eyes were slits. "Gimme another minute,” he mumbled, turning back into the pillow. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter had gotten up early. He hadn’t been sleeping too good anyway because they were in a motel and they were on the run and they were hoping nobody from home would come after them and nobody around them would notice they were homosexual and maybe try to beat them or kill them. He didn’t tell Joey, but he kept feeling like everybody was gonna find out. He kept thinking people were watching them. He just needed to keep Joey safe and get them over the border and find somewhere better and then they might be good. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Although he didn’t know where the fuck would be any better than all the places they’d been through in the car already that had been just the same as home. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "No,” he said, “Now, or I'm gonna lose my nerve." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He’d gone to the convenience store and first he got breakfast for them. Then, the mood ring. Then, a revolver and a round of bullets for it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Okay, asshole, hold your horses,” Joey was grumbling at him. He was yawning and shuffling up in bed and he was in his undershirt and boxer shorts because they’d forgotten to bring any pyjamas when they left. Peter was really in love with him. So fucking in love.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "What?" Joey said, and he was so grumpy and beautiful when he said it that Peter got all tongue-tied again as if they hadn’t been together for two years.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He said, "Um."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Now you won't even say it? What's gotten your tongue in a twist, huh?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Will you… will you marry me?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He kind of thrust the ring out at Joey. It didn’t have a pretty box or anything and he hadn’t revealed it in the way he wanted it to, but Joey beamed at him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Then his eyes started to dampen. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter closed his fist around the ring. "Oh, shit. Was that not a good thing?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Stop doubting yourself, baby,” Joey said, laughing and crying, and then he pulled Peter into his arms and held him and for half a moment, Peter thought that maybe nobody was following them, maybe nobody wanted to hurt them, maybe it was just them. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "This is the best thing ever,” Joey said. He kissed his cheek fervently. “Jesus. I'm just emotional."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter put it on him, his heart still clattering and Joey still crying and grinning and resting his head on Peter’s shoulder. A little bright pocket of love. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Look, it thinks I'm angry,” Joey laughed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And then Peter got nervous again. "Are you?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey held Peter’s face and made him look up at him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Look at my face, dumbass. Do I look angry to you?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter kissed Joey. They were engaged. </em>
</p><p>“Fuck,” Peter whispers. He tips to the side a little so he’s leaning on Tony, and Tony holds up that portion of his weight that he needs holding up for a little while.</p><p>He puts on the mood ring. It goes alongside his old wire ring.</p><p>The last things the kid brings out of the duffel bag are two beaten-up notebooks. He sets one aside with familiarity - Tony sees a scrawled <em> Peter </em> across the front - and holds the other in his hands like it’s a bar of solid gold. <em> Joey Monroe, </em> it says neatly across the front.</p><p>“He never wrote like that really,” chuckles Peter, and it’s sad but happy. Tony finds that he could listen to this kid talk about Joey for a good fucking long time. “He got it trained into him at school that you had to print your name real nice on book covers. In reality, he wrote fucking chicken scratch.”</p><p>Tony hums. Without thinking, he says, “Yeah, Faith had that too. You’d think she’d write all pretty but I could never read a thing she wrote.”</p><p>And Peter laughs and Tony laughs and it’s not really a big deal.</p><p>Peter opens the book and it turns out that it's not a notebook, it’s a sketchbook.</p><p>“He was an artist?”</p><p>It’s a rough sketch of a gloomy alleyway, one streetlamp casting distant light, and a few shadowy figures with cigarette trails. It’s good.</p><p>“Uh-huh. We sort of fit together. I wrote and he drew.”</p><p>Then the kid flips the page and everything changes.</p><p>The drawing is of Peter. It’s of Peter’s face, bright and damp against a background filled in with black marker pen. Where everywhere around him is scribbled into darkness, he is lightly and delicately shaded in pencil. He’s looking right out of the page, one Peter looking at the other, one wet from the sea and the other wet with tears.</p><p>The kid runs his finger over the lines and cries.</p><p>Tony’s thinking a lot of things all at the same time until he can’t pick out any one thing anymore. It’s a fucking mess. </p><p>He knows, though, that the feeling rooted deep at the bottom of his gut isn’t hatred. It’s grief for something beautiful that was lost.</p><p>There are more sketches and they’re all of Peter. Peter smiling. Peter laughing. Peter somber, Peter in awe, Peter sleeping, Peter drinking a coke float, Peter scowling in a too-big winter hat, Peter from behind with that khaki jacket on with dark trousers - the sketch accompanied by a scrawled note that says <em> your ass is cute on any day, baby. </em> Peter laughs wetly. </p><p>A charcoal sketch of Peter on his stomach, the curve of his bare back emerging from a tangle of covers. <em> The valley of my love. </em> Below it, <em> you keep snoring, you beautiful idiot. </em> Peter’s chin and jaw and neck to the slopes of his shoulders. <em> I think you’re from heaven. Or maybe outer space. </em> Peter reclined in a chair in his underwear with a burn between his fingers. <em> Smoking another goddamn Pall Mall, I see. </em> Three pages of sketches of Peter’s hands, all riddled with crossings-out and eraser marks. <em> Something’s not right. The real thing is better. </em> Peter’s eyes, wide, adoring, staring. <em> Reminder: get him a Valentine’s gift. Hide under carpet in closet so mom doesn’t see if she cleans. </em></p><p>A grassy bank scattered with flowers. </p><p>“We got married there,” Peter says shakily. </p><p><em> “Aren’t there vows?” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “Yeah, do you know what people say?” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “To have and to hold?” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “To honour.” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “To honour, to… cherish?” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “Sickness and health.” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “In sickness and in health!” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “For richer, for poorer!” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p><em> “ </em> <em> Forever and ever…” </em> <em><br/></em></p><p>
  <em> “Amen.” </em>
</p><p>Peter is everywhere in that damn notebook. It’s something. </p><p>He whispers, “He spent so long trying to get me right.”</p><p>Looking over at the kid, Tony sees too much fucking pain in his countenance, too much for anyone of twenty-three or for any goddamn age for that matter. But he’s silent. You can see his shoulders shaking, but he’s silent. And Tony realises how he managed to be so quiet in his cell at the Raft. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel emotion but that he tried his damndest to hide it.</p><p>Feeling really stupid but also like it’s important to say it, Tony tells Peter, “You can cry, kid. You don’t have to be quiet anymore.”</p><p>Peter kind of hums in agreement, then he’s curling in on himself. He’s a black hole imploding. Tony thinks that’s a really shitty thing to be happening. So he puts his arm around the kid.</p><p>
  <em> “Come on, don’t be stupid right before we make love for the first time. Let’s say something meaningful to each other.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey was sentimental. It was sappy and awful and sweet. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You can’t just put me on the spot,” Peter protested. He shot as good of a glare as he could give up to Joey, who lay over him. It was Joey’s room, because his parents were away for the night. They could spend the whole night together. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You go first, you’re the poet.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “No, you.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Christ, okay,” Joey said with a smile. “Peter… oh, shit. This is scary.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter bobbed up and kissed his eyebrow. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Peter… when I’m holding you, I’m complete.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter already knew what he wanted to say. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You’re the sun and I’m the moon, Joey. You’re bursting full of light. Getting to reflect it is my favourite thing ever.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey eased down over Peter then and helped him take off his sweater. Peter’s heart twanged the brassy melody of a bass guitar. They were one and the same, their toes and their foreheads pressed together. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Showoff,” Joey murmured around Peter’s lips. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I love you,” Peter shot back with just as much fondness. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I love you.” </em>
</p><p>Peter talks and talks and Tony listens. Tony is maybe the only person who’s ever listened.</p><p>“We figured we had to keep it a secret. But we just, we couldn’t not be together. Not after it had started.”</p><p>
  <em> In public, they were good friends. That was when it was hard. When they’d book back seats to the shittiest flicks and entwine their hands in the darkness, thinking at every moment that someone would see and know. Just walking along the street together felt dangerous.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But Peter’s bedroom, Peter’s bedroom was their safe haven. They’d dance to Peter’s scratchy records, they’d chainsmoke, they’d sit and nap or make art of each other, just silently loving each other. They’d talk about their days like an old married couple.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That’s what Joey would say. “Let's be an old married couple."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I'd like that a lot. Maybe with less arguing."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "More fucking." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And they’d laugh and they’d maybe make out or just hold one another. That was Peter’s favourite thing. Holding him. Being held.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Some fucker decided that he </em>
</p><p>
  <em> wanted to call my baby a faggot </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the other day and I wanted to  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> hit him </em>
</p><p>
  <em> but I didn’t. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But my baby did </em>
</p><p>
  <em> he gave fucking him up a good go, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and guess what </em>
</p><p>
  <em> some fucker decided that he </em>
</p><p>
  <em> wanted to ruin us both. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> “How much did he pay you, Parker? Enough for your own bedroom at last? Or are you still sleeping with your mother too?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And Joey lunged for Jerry but Peter held him back and said in his ear, "Don't, don't, don't, don't. Joey, you can't." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "He sure can, Parker. He can do whatever the fuck he likes, apparently."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey was tense as anything. He yelled, "Yeah, and it's none of your motherfucking business, prick!" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And then they were fighting and Peter tried to get in between them again but it all got fucked up and then Jerry had him and David had Joey and although Peter was thrashing like a goddamn bull it wasn’t working. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Is this what it's like? Rough and steamy? Do you feel like an animal?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Eat shit,” Peter grit, trying to sound tough, but he was really just terrified. Jerry was too strong and too close. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Don't fucking touch him!" Joey was screaming. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "What's the difference? You've touched him here, right?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Jerry got Peter in a headlock with one hand so he could get his other down towards Peter’s jeans and fist it near his crotch and Peter couldn’t hardly do anything about it. His breath was coming from him like someone was punching it out. He could hear Jerry’s breath in his ear. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Here?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The hand went up and under his shirt and Peter was looking at Joey and Joey looked furious but mostly scared, scared for Peter, scared scared scared. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I know you've been fucking around down here."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The hand was going to his jeans again only it was going beneath his waistband and fuck. Peter froze.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Joey kept wrestling away from David. "Get your hands off him, Jerry--"</em>
</p><p>
  <em> But it left just as quick as it had gotten there and Peter hit the floor. Jerry had shoved him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Fucking whore." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They got away, both him and Joey knocking their captors away and making a break for it, and as they ran two sets of shouts echoed at their backs. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Go to hell, faggots!"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "You're dead. You're both dead."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> After it happened, it was just them in the alleyway again, only Peter felt like he was going out of his mind. His lungs weren’t working properly. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I want there to be a vacuum, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> a perfect orb of nothingness </em>
</p><p>
  <em> where we will exist, suspended in an eternal kiss, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> like our mouths are suctioned to one another, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> baby’s gums clamped to mother's breast. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I yearn for that quiet. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sometimes, it’s really all I’d like from my life-- </em>
</p><p>
  <em> safe, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> quiet, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and my love never letting go. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Someone touched him from behind and he jumped. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “It’s just me, baby.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey didn’t stop holding him until he’d relaxed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I'm gonna pack a bag at home,” Peter said eventually. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Okay."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "So, if we ever need to... go anywhere..."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Mm-hm."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Are you listening to me?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "It's not over, Peter."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Well, what the hell are we supposed to do?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "We'll get that bag packed and we'll get out of here."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Where?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Somewhere where we can hold hands in the middle of the fucking day and nobody gives a damn."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "There isn't anywhere like that,” Peter said. He didn’t want to, but he had to say it. He’d lost his light somewhere in that alleyway and even Joey couldn’t give it back to him just then.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey just gripped him tighter. "Until you find it."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "It's not happening, Joey. We're fucking doomed."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Let me have this. Come on. If we don't have hope, we've got nothing, even if the hope is stupid." </em>
</p><p>Right at the back of the sketchbook is a longer note than the rest. <em> An article in the library says France is more liberal. France could be our place. Tell Peter tomorrow. </em></p><p>This makes Peter the saddest.</p><p>“He never got to tell me,” the kid breathes. </p><p>He’s sort of crumpled against Tony now, but it’s alright. Tony feels a deep, hollow ache right where he thinks his heart still is. Somehow, the hollowness is a sign that it’ll be okay. That there’s room to pack more good shit in, not just a rotten place that’s no good.</p><p>
  <em> "What the fuck?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> A gunshot woke Peter up.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He scrambled around in bed, going for the revolver but fumbling in the darkness, and then he saw the outline of a man in the doorway. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He finally got the drawer of his nightstand open and held the gun out at the man. His hands were shaking like crazy. But the man turned around. Peter kept holding up the gun. The shadow retreated. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter dropped the gun. Jesus fucking Christ. He wrapped his arms tight around himself and tried not to shake too badly. It was just some gunfire. Nothing had come of it. He turned on the lamp on the nightstand. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Joey, what the fuck was--” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey was still lying there on his back like he’d slept through it all. Only he hadn’t. He hadn’t because there was a bullet hole in his temple. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Joey." </em>
</p><p>
  <em>  Peter ran and crouched over Joey, Joey who was silent, Joey who was still. He couldn’t understand. He was sleeping just then. He’d been sleeping and now he wasn’t even alive. He was alive then he wasn’t. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Joey, Joey, what? What's this?” He was babbling and he didn’t even hear the words in his own head. He picked up Joey’s head and it was so, so heavy.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “What did he - you're funny, Joey. Just get up now. Get up, get the fuck up, don't just lie there, Joey. What are you doing? What are you doing to me?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The anger of a thousand injustices rose up in him. He crushed his head to Joey’s chest. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Fuck no, Joey. Fucking, fucking shit! Bullshit! This can't happen, this can't--"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Peter suddenly got it into his head that if he just kissed Joey, he’d wake up and it would all be a joke. So he kissed him. But Joey was all wrong. His mouth was cold already. He was dead. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Stop it, Joey.” Now Peter was sobbing. It really hurt his chest. He was holding Joey’s hand and then he wasn’t because his hand was cold too and it didn’t hold him back. He just needed Joey to hold him. He was the moon without the sun. He was stuck.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Said you were gonna live for me, you bastard. I love you. Come back."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Joey’s temple started to bleed. Peter shook with his grief. "No. Stop, I need you, Joey. Joey."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He kissed him again, his mouth and nose and forehead and jaw and cheek and eyelids. His eyelids wouldn’t open because the eyes behind them were dead. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Somehow, he’d gotten Joey’s blood smeared on his face a little. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He got quiet then. "Shit. I'm sorry,” he said to Joey, not thinking about how there was no point talking to him because he was fucking dead. He licked his finger and he cleared away the blood and he tried not to hurt Joey or mess up his face any more.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> And that was all it took </em>
</p><p>
  <em> to fell the mighty Joey Monroe </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> My baby </em>
</p><p>
  <em> has gone </em>
</p><p>
  <em> away. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Time began to blur for Peter then in that motel room. He wandered around and didn’t want to look at the lifeless thing that used to be his husband. He packed a bag and put some of Joey’s shit and some of his shit in it. It was most all of what they had, actually. It wasn’t like Peter was going to leave the goddamn motel now Joey wasn’t going to leave with him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He remembers that he got back up onto the bed and Joey had bled all the way onto the pillow and it made him so depressed he could hardly breathe. He lay with Joey and stroked his hair and cried.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Then there were wailing noises, sliding up and down and up. Then there was knocking at his door, and Peter woke up real fast and picked up the revolver from the floor and for half a second he thought that maybe it would be good to shoot himself.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But Joey would never want him to do that. If he did that, Joey would probably get right back to life and get Peter back to life too just so he could kill him again. Joey wouldn’t ever think about shooting himself and he got fucking shot. It wouldn’t have been fair for Peter to shoot himself then. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So he pointed it out instead. And in came a horde of cops and they had a thousand guns to his one little revolver but he couldn’t let go of it all of a sudden, it was glued to his rigid hand, and he was stuck sitting against the bed, shaking. They took the gun out of his hands. They were yelling but Peter couldn’t make out what the hell they were saying. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Handcuffs tightened around his wrists. They were cold. He wanted his hands free so he could go and hold Joey’s hand again. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I want to say goodbye,” he said to the cops, but his throat was all torn up so it was hardly a murmur and nobody listened anyway. They pulled him out of the room.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I want to say goodbye.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But he never got to. He got a police station. He got a trial.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The judge said he was cold-blooded. He was just empty. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Besides, he wouldn’t say that him and Joey had been together. He didn’t want people to think of Joey like that. He didn’t want anyone else to call his baby a faggot, especially when he wasn’t around to fuck them up for it. So he got a murder sentence instead. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You were ninety-nine percent of why I ever got out of bed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> When you were my best friend, waiting outside Algebra, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It was the same. Your eyes all I’d chase. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But when I was in your arms and you smelt  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Of your great troupe of pale Camels, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That was a reason, instead, to stay </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Lying there </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Wrapped in that specific scent of sweat that marked out our love  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> With an exclamation point. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What you liked to do was put your face in my hair. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Your nose dipped to reach my scalp </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And put ripples in my mind to rest. Still. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m a great infestation of ridges and pores and </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Scars now. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I can’t take care of them with my mere one percent. Not alone. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I think I’ll just fall apart. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Peter tells Tony that he’d lost Joey two months before he got into the Raft and Tony realises that it doesn’t even matter how long it had been. It matters that the kid lost Joey and went to the fucking Raft, went to the place old cons go to rot, and lit it up.</p><p>“I admire you. I’d have just thrown in the fucking towel.”</p><p>“I couldn’t.” Peter huffs. He starts scrubbing at his face, composing himself at last. There’s been grief lodged in him for six years, but he’s let it free at last. Tony can almost feel the relief of that.</p><p>He sighs, then says, “I promised I’d live for him. I’m not one to break a promise.”</p><p>
  <em> "Love you, Peter."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "You're the love of my life, Joey."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I love you more."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Well, I love you the most, how about that?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "No, I definitely love you more. You have no idea."  </em>
</p><p>“You <em> have no idea. I'd die for you."  </em></p><p><em> "Don't. Don't die for me. </em> Live <em> for me."  </em></p><p>
  <em> "I'll live for you. Every day, for you. Will you live for me, too?"  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Course I will."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Never gonna stop loving you."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Love you."  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Love you." </em>
</p><p>Tony thinks about the library, about <em> “live for me, Ben.” </em></p><p>Everything’s starting to make sense about the kid at last.</p><p>Tony sets his head on top of Peter’s. He was already hugging the kid a little, but he wants to do something more. He brackets him, encircles him, shields him. Peter’s twenty-three but he lost eighteen, so Tony’s giving just a fraction of it back to him.</p><p>They sit.</p><p> </p><p>Peter breaks the somber silence in the car by saying, “You know what would make me feel a whole lot better?”</p><p>“Oh, God. What?” </p><p>“If I could drive.”</p><p>And Tony refuses.</p><p>"But I'm trusting you to drive me when the last time you drove was two decades ago! I drove a couple years ago. I can do it."</p><p>And Tony huffs and grumbles and makes a big fuss of conceding because he doesn’t want it to be obvious that it’s not actually as big of a deal as he thought it was before.</p><p>That’s how he ends up driving with a very literal madman. Peter has no concept of speed limits. Thank Christ they’re on a rural road. But he’s laughing and cheering as he does it, and Tony thinks, <em> there’s my Peter. </em>It’s a bit of a fucking odd thought, but there it is. And it’s not wrong.</p><p>A weight is off the kid. It’s palpable.</p><p>So Tony lets him speed through Kentucky and it’s really alright. </p><p> </p><p>“Do you know what’s funny, kid?”</p><p>“What?” says Peter around his ubiquitous Pall Mall.</p><p>“I reckon you know a whole fuck-ton more about love than I do.”</p><p>“Well, you had a wife.”</p><p>“You had a husband.”</p><p>And Peter’s cheek ticks upwards at that.</p><p>God, Tony’s a fucking liberal. He’ll be eating flowers and smoking crazy shit from stupidly long pipes next. He’s a beatnik. He’s a hippy. He’s a flower child. It feels better than being a hotshot banker with a ghost wife.</p><p>“Didn’t you love Faith?” the kid asks him.</p><p>God, what a question.</p><p>“I’m not sure about that, kid.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I think maybe I did it all wrong. Hell, I don’t think I could have fucked it up worse.”</p><p>“That can’t be true,” Peter cuts in right after him. “If you tried your best, it can’t have been bad. I know you.”</p><p>“Are you fucking with me?”</p><p>“Why would I be fucking with you?” Peter says, loud all of a sudden, and insistent. He puffs out a vehement cloud of smoke. Then he goes on: “Tony, you’re a guy who fixes things. You fuck up, of course, but you make it better. That’s what’s good about you. If there was something you couldn’t fix, it had to be someone else doing a lot of the fucking up.”</p><p>“It wasn’t - there was mutual fucking-up. But… thank you.”</p><p>“Sometimes, it just doesn’t work.”</p><p>It’s true. Tony's not about to get all metaphorical and whimsical like he's sure the kid would were he to think about it. He just thinks that it's true. Shit happens.</p><p>Tony still decided to disable Faith’s car brakes. He still knows that was a fucking awful thing to do. Now he’s served his time, he can learn to do better. To keep fixing things and stop disabling them. To be a good man.</p><p>“I never asked if you wanted to get some stuff from your old place,” Peter continues.</p><p>“That’s fine, kid. It’s probably all gone by now. Best to let it stay buried, I figure.”</p><p>He doesn’t explain what <em> it </em> is. He doesn’t really have to.</p><p>Tony’s thinking all about growing now. He’s gonna start anew.</p><p>Without turning it over more than once in his head, he says to the kid, “How about France?”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“We could go to France. Once we’re across the border, anyway. I’ll get you some sort of identification so we can get there. You can even pick out a fake name.”</p><p>Tony wonders if the kid’s ever going to move again. His hands are still and white on the steering wheel.</p><p>“I just figured, because I can speak a little of the language, that would make sense - and they’re more liberal over there, it would make it easier for both of us, and you could, you know, do whatever the hell you wanted.”</p><p>“Fucking hell!” Peter cries out.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Finally, the kid confronts Tony with a grin the size of the goddamn Atlantic. An unexpected pang of relief hits Tony.</p><p>“That would be a dream come true,” he says eventually, like he can’t even believe it.</p><p>“Then it’s a deal.”</p><p> </p><p>The old murderer with a new life and the young homosexual poet cross the border to Mexico in a bright blue Thunderbird. They pretend their names are Howard Potts and Ben Reilly. Once they’re there, they spend July in a hotel and out in the city. They rediscover the world. They eat tacos. They don’t mind the heat.</p><p>They’re free men, just like all the other motherfuckers in Mexico.</p><p>Next, they book a trip in a jet to <em> Aéroport de Paris-Charles de Gaulle </em>in France. It’s their first flight, both of them, and it’s sort of terrifying but also blows Tony’s fucking mind. There’s a lounge where they both flash their fake IDs and get fancy little cocktails and grin over them. Peter grins more often than not. He spends half the flight with his face pressed to the window to watch the clouds cruise by. Tony makes his merry way through a pack of Marlboros.</p><p>And then they’re touching down in France and the signs above them as they navigate out of the airport together are foreign yet familiar. They track down a place that sells blue Thunderbirds and they get one because they miss the one they left behind in Mexico. And they’re on the road again.</p><p>Tony thinks he could freeze time right now - the wind raking past him as he drives them out of Paris, the pale French sun, the leather seats adhered to his pants, the kid beside him laying back with a Coca-Cola, the green, green, green rushing by - and he’d be perfectly happy.</p><p>Peter gets out to piss away the Coca-Cola and he’s been writing again, only he hands the notebook to Tony before he goes. Tony freezes. It suddenly feels like he’s been passed the goddamn Mona Lisa, or maybe Marilyn Monroe’s underwear - but it also feels like the kid’s given him permission to look at the paintwork or the lace and see what he thinks.</p><p>So he reads the poetry.</p><p>There’s all kinds of shit in there, all of it raw and messy and beautiful. There are some poems the kid’s copied, crediting the writers below. Most of them must be his, though.</p><p>
  <em> Do you think Jesus loves the old cons in prison? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Do you think the holy ghost  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> slips in behind the bars every night  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> before they get shut on number four-two-oh-five-eight? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Is a life sentence its own kind of cross to bear? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Or are they Bad,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and we, behind our self-imposed bars of picket,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Good? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> If only it was that easy. </em>
</p><p>There’s a lot of that, a lot about the Raft, a lot about a particular rock Peter broke apart one day while out working. A lot about the boys, the cafeteria, the library. A lot about Tony. Tony doesn’t know what to think about that. It’s nice, he supposes. Not like Peter’s talking shit about him in poetry form or anything. It’s more poems that are so startlingly tender the breath gets knocked out of his chest, poems like:</p><p>
  <em>A Poem for Tony Stark</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You took my hand,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>yours flickering in the yellow lamplight as if</em>
</p><p>
  <em>proving their own solidity,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>and smoothed out my fingers</em>
</p><p>
  <em>when they got stuck.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>My hands wrote while you read</em>
</p><p>
  <em>and the evening flowed like a harmony,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>easing my soul.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You are love when love is all I need.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You are a love I never had but now I need like water.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Tony, if you</em>
</p><p>
  <em>die someday, </em>
</p><p><em>I</em> <em>'ll sure miss you saying fuck you.</em></p><p>There’s a poem about Ben.</p><p>
  <em> Hat upon his head, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the old man walked </em>
</p><p>
  <em> to his freedom </em>
</p><p>
  <em> on the other side of the road. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You’d think he’d wear bright </em>
</p><p>
  <em> red or blue or </em>
</p><p>
  <em> even pink, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> just for the hell of it, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> but he was </em>
</p><p>
  <em> wearing brown. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Brown like dirt. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Dirt like what everyone </em>
</p><p>
  <em> thought he was. </em>
</p><p>There are maybe nine pages of scrawled writing about solitary confinement that could barely be described as poems. There’s an entertaining haiku about Stane which employs some very colourful language.</p><p>And most of all, there’s poem after poem after poem about Joey. Five-line ditties and five-page odysseys. A page full of <em> Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey Joey.  </em></p><p>All one page says is <em> I miss you. </em></p><p>Tony’s a great stir-fry of emotion and it’s fucking him up in a good way.</p><p>He keeps the book open in his hands as Peter comes back then hands it over.</p><p>“How’d you like it?” Peter asks him quietly.</p><p>“It’s something else.”</p><p>It really is. Tony wants him to know that and Peter looks like he does.</p><p>Tony turns the keys in the Thunderbird. He and the kid settle in for another long ride.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The next chapter is the last!!! We're drawing towards the end... how are y'all feeling? Drop it in the comments :)<br/>I learnt how to write poetry while writing these little snippets but some of them are from the period where I was still puzzling over how you actually Write Poetry, so forgive me for the amateur-ish stuff!<br/>In other news, I filmed the student film!!! It was amazing and I'm really excited to see it when it comes around in a few months!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's here! The end!! I'm emo!!!!!<br/>This one has no trigger warnings, enjoy yourselves folks :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.</p><p>
  <em> --Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> June 1960 </em>
</p><p>Tony’s a late riser. By the time his eyes are open, he can hear the bustle of guests in his hotel preparing for a new day in Ensuès-la-Redonne, France. </p><p>He puts on the first clothes he sees and goes to the kitchen. Sure enough, Peter’s down there already with a number of guests, flicking through the post with a smile. They’ve got a long wooden table that fills up most all of the room and seats a ton of guests. They’ve also got a maid who buys some of their groceries and cooks because Tony and Peter have learned that they’re hopeless at cooking. It all works pretty well. There’s a steady rotation of families - elderly couples, young globetrotters, families on holiday, and lonely souls looking to start anew - who book in at Howard Potts and Ben Reilly’s strange little hotel by the shore. They’re good company, weird and wonderful and always changing. It’s nice knowing that some of them might remember after they leave that Tony treated them kindly.</p><p>Of course, Peter is a favourite with the guests. He’s a little shit but he’s witty and sweet and good with kids, it turns out. He’s been publishing poetry under his fake name. </p><p><em>“Ben Reilly’s The Valley of My Love leaves you feeling less alone and more alive,”</em> the kid is reading. “That’s a real good one.”</p><p>Tony drops some bread into the toaster. “More reviews come in?”</p><p>“Yeah. One guy hates my guts, but the rest are nice.”</p><p>“What does the guy who hates your guts say?” </p><p><em>“Critics who praise Ben Reilly’s work fail to notice the utter vacuity and disregard for the art of poetry itself in such contemptible witterings as A Joyride and Something I Dug Up the Other Day.” </em>Peter’s reading it out through a fit of laughter.</p><p>Tony thinks about swearing but sees Scott and Hope’s kid at the table and thinks better of it. He’s just not swearing as much any more. There’s no real reason to. “Very colourful,” he says instead.</p><p>“Colourful, for sure. I’m going to show Michelle when she picks me up.” The kid tucks the slip of paper in the pocket of his jeans.</p><p>Sometimes Tony looks at Peter and it’s like a vision. Time funnels and distorts and he’s eighteen, no hat, pencil and napkin in hand, number four-two-oh-five-eight on his chest. He’s twenty-five now and almost never seen without that damn cap of his. He spends half of his time writing poetry at a leisurely pace at the hotel and the other half at the Nova Café. He seems more content than Tony had ever seen him in the Raft.</p><p>“What about the people who liked it?”</p><p>Peter’s equally excited to show the positive reviews to his adoring audience. “Some guy just said <em> incendiary, heartfelt, sharp as a knife.” </em></p><p>“Sounds about right,” Natasha concurs from behind one of Peter’s poetry books.</p><p>“Like it?”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>Peter grins wider.</p><p>He shifts through another wad of reviews then starts. “Tony! It’s from Uncle Ben!”</p><p>“It is?”</p><p>They’d sent out a little letter to New York where they remembered Ben had once talked about, hardly expecting a response. There were plenty of guys named Ben around. They didn’t even know at first if he was still alive. But here they are.</p><p>The kid holds it out to him. It’s a postcard showing the Brooklyn Bridge.</p><p>“It says, <em> doing swell. Going dancing when my health allows it. I’m not letting you down, Peter. </em> That’s nice. <em> Tony, I hope you’re still reading. Very glad to hear you’ve both earned your freedom. I’m afraid I can’t foresee a visit happening, what with me being an old man, but I hope writing will suffice. </em>Isn’t that great, Tony?”</p><p>Tony huffs out a laugh at him. Knowing Ben is alive and enjoying it is yet another weight off his feather-light chest.</p><p><em> You’ve both earned your freedom. </em>That’s a good one. There’s this whole alibi he and Peter worked out together that he doesn’t care to recount again now, and it’s kind of bullshit, but people seem to buy it. Maybe God is on their side because nobody ever came looking for either of them. It was a clean breakout. They’re officially a mystery.</p><p>They’d managed to get news from the Raft, though. A whole troop of cops had stormed the place. Stane had blown his brains out before they could arrest him. Ironic. There’s a new warden and hopefully some new rules, but it’s not like the establishment has fallen or anything crazy. It’s still the way it was.</p><p>Peter goes through a few more reviews until a car horn sounds from outside. Then he’s stuffing the last of his scrambled eggs in his mouth and dashing for the door. He waves to Tony and the guests. He’s gone. He’s a whirlwind. He’s getting back eighteen.</p><p> </p><p>Michelle is French but speaks pretty much perfect English. She was a godsend when Peter first met her, still stumbling over his past and present participles, and she introduced him to the hidden world of the Nova Café.</p><p>He climbs into her Corvette and she doesn’t spare him a glance but he knows she’s happy to see him.</p><p><em> “Bon matin,” </em> he greets her. He takes out a few reviews and tells her about them in French because he feels like showing off. <em> “J’ai reçu plein d’avis sur ma poésie.” </em></p><p>She smirks and takes them from him. “<em> Utter vacuity and disregard for the art of poetry itself. </em>Harsh.”</p><p>“Well, the rest were nice.”</p><p>“The mean ones are more fun,” she says with a little snort, her coily hair brushing the dashboard as she brings the car to life with a turn of her keys.</p><p>“I’m going to read the nice ones anyway,” Peter retorts. <em> “Ben Reilly’s second poetry anthology continues to enthrall and--” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Tais-toi, connard.”  </em>
</p><p>“I’m flattered to be an asshole in your eyes,” Peter teases her, “And no, I will not shut up. It’s a free country.”</p><p>“Not when you’re being a <em> connard.” </em></p><p>Michelle smokes cigars. Peter is a little in awe of that. She’s taking one out of her jacket pocket now and holding it out to Peter, who lights it for her. They cruise into town and towards the café.</p><p>“So,” Peter says to her, fighting a smirk, “Will Sylvie be there today?”</p><p>Michelle scowls at the road. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask her because I’ve known her for all of two weeks.”</p><p>“Nothing wrong with two weeks.”</p><p>Michelle is smiling just a little now, a sarcastic smile but a smile nonetheless. “I don’t need your matchmaking services. Get your nose out of my love life and go lust after another white boy.”</p><p>“I don’t <em>lust</em>, I <em> pine. </em>Poetically.”</p><p>“So you getting a rod on when Lucas danced with you last week was all in my imagination?”</p><p>“That was--” Peter glows pink. “Sometimes that just happens. It was entirely coincidental, okay?”</p><p>“Sure,” says Michelle in a way that lets Peter know she doesn’t believe him in the slightest.</p><p>And they’ve arrived, thank God.</p><p>The café is a place Peter never knew could exist. On the surface, it’s a hub for young people, sometimes a space for lively conversation and coffee and smoking, sometimes a stage for musicians and satirists and poets to take the mic in front of an obliging audience, sometimes a meeting point for casual book exchanges. Really - Peter doesn’t know how to put this any less bluntly - it’s full of homosexuals. It’s a gay café. Peter met Michelle, the first homosexual person he knew other than Joey, in the fall of 1958, and since has met hundreds of others like him. People who’ve lost Joeys of their own. People who took him under their wing and made him feel, for once, like an insider.</p><p>And yes, it’s full of French dreamboats.</p><p>He walks in with Michelle and is enveloped by the café’s welcoming warmth. Ned is up at the mic, reciting some of his poetry, and shoots them both a small smile of recognition as they take a seat. Ned’s poetry actually rhymes. Peter doesn’t know how he does it. He’s always been shit at rhyming himself.</p><p>They listen until Ned finishes up, leaving the mic empty. Peter goes up onstage without much thought of what he’s going to recite. It’s okay. Everyone’s friendly. He could give a monologue about Pall Malls and nobody would mind too much.</p><p><em> “Salut, homosexuels!” </em>he says to his audience. He gets a chorus of laughter in response.</p><p>He introduces himself a little: <em> “Je suis Américain, alors… </em>hi. I’m Ben Reilly, but you can call me Peter.” </p><p>And then, in the way that often happens, an old poem just floats into his head.</p><p>“I’m about to read a poem that’s, uh… I guess it’s just about me. Me, and everything that’s happened in my life, and how I feel about it.” </p><p>And he clears his throat and starts.</p><p>
  <em> “I’m lucky. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m full of words that turn down the mouth-- </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Death. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Prison. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Abuse. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Abandonment. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But I’m the luckiest man alive. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> As long as there’s love in my heart </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and people to pour it out into,</em>
</p><p>
  <em> so I can keep refilling,</em>
</p><p>
  <em> and outpouring, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> becoming drenched with love </em>
</p><p>
  <em> like I’ve soaked myself  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> in the sea where I found </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the love who</em>
</p><p>
  <em> began it all.” </em>
</p><p>He’s done, but the room is silent. </p><p>There’s nothing, then there’s a lot of clapping. Some cheering, too, and a couple of people even get on their feet. Peter can’t help but grin at it.</p><p><em> “Merci,” </em>he says into the mic before going to take a seat again. But someone goes to him, and - holy shit, this guy who’s just approached him is something else. He makes Peter stop right in his tracks. His smile is sunlight.</p><p><em> “Bonjour.” </em> The man smiles again, creasing the corners of his mouth in a really picturesque way. He’s got this rich, dark skin that stuns Peter quite a lot. <em> “Je suis Philippe.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Bonjour, Philippe.” </em>
</p><p>He breaks into English - Peter’s grateful, because his French is good but not good enough to stand up under the pressure of the arresting smile directed at him. “I’ve got to say, I don’t really know what I’m doing right now. I just wanted to say that - your poem, it’s something else.”</p><p>
  <em> Something else. </em>
</p><p>Peter just stares at him like a class-A dumbass.</p><p>“It was like a wave of tenderness came out of you and went through everyone. That’s what it was. A wave. It was so simple but it worked. I’d love to see some more of your writing.”</p><p>“I, um - wow. Yes.” Peter hasn’t stammered this much since eighth grade.</p><p>One thing leads to another and somebody asks for music and the chairs are cleared and Peter’s dancing with Philippe like he’s in a dream. Over Philippe’s shoulder, he can see Sylvie leading Michelle towards an empty space, and he smirks. </p><p>But something feels wrong.</p><p><em> “In sickness and in health!” </em> <em> <br/></em></p><p><em>“For richer, for poorer!” </em> <em> <br/></em></p><p><em>“Forever and ever…” </em> <em> <br/></em></p><p>
  <em>“Amen.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Never gonna stop loving you."  </em>
</p><p>It doesn’t stop Peter from dancing, but it stops him from laying his head on Philippe’s shoulder like he was thinking about doing. Elvis is playing and he should be perfectly content, but this always happens when he gets close to a guy. The doubt. The guilt.</p><p>“Can we take a smoke break?” he asks Philippe over the music.</p><p>Philippe leads him outside and God, Philippe is a gentleman, and he likes Peter.</p><p>“I don’t have any more poetry on me now,” he begins, “but if you came back to my place maybe we could look at it over dinner?”</p><p>He’s not sure where that came from. He thinks maybe Philippe is magic. A sorcerer or a siren or something. He’s barely just met him.</p><p>
  <em> “Ça semble parfait.” </em>
</p><p>“I should warn you that when I say <em> my place, </em> I mean - I sort of live in a hotel with a man I met in prison and a bunch of houseguests.”</p><p>Most people ask him at that point why he was in prison. Philippe, however, just laughs so hard he almost drops his cigarette.</p><p>“Fascinating,” is all he has to say when he finally composes himself. “I can’t wait.”</p><p> </p><p>There’s a little garden in front of the hotel. Tony bought some gardening things on a whim and he supposes it stuck. He often spends afternoons here now, among the flowers and vegetables, between the hotel and the sea. There’s a little bluff that careens downwards from the front garden and leads pretty much directly to the ocean. Right now, Tony can recognise one of his families of guests playing around at the shoreline.</p><p>It’s funny that gardening is something he likes to do so much. It should really make no sense after the decades of sewage cleaning and rock-breaking and fence-building and road-laying. But maybe it’s also the reason why tending his own plants on his own terms is so damn satisfying. The sun and the wind are upon him, and if he wants to he can go inside and cool down with a water or a Coca-Cola because he’s a free man.</p><p>The family are rushing back up the bluff now in a fit of giggles. They’re real sweet. Another of those young couples that all got together in the fifties. </p><p>The father bundles up his toddling son from the sand and sits him on his hip while they climb the steepest section. You might be thinking that it makes Tony jealous, but it doesn’t. It just makes him happy. That’s why he loves the hotel. He gets to witness a thousand different types of people and their love for each other in a million different forms. He pours a little bit of his own love into each of them, he likes to think, and for himself, he’s got the kid.</p><p>The family doesn’t speak a lot of English, so he asks them how the sea was in their own language. <em> “La mer, c'était chaud? C'était bon?” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Ouais. Très agréable, en fait.” Yes. Very pleasant, actually. </em>
</p><p><em> “Et vous?” </em>Tony says to the giggling kids. He gets a trio of nods.</p><p><em>“D’accord. Il est temps de retournez a l'intérieur, alors?” </em>He smiles at that, thinking, <em>retournez a l'intérieur.</em> <em>It </em>is <em>useful to be able to say that, kid.</em></p><p>There’s agreement from the parents, who herd their children indoors to clean up. </p><p> </p><p>Tony’s just finishing weeding the last bed when someone starts talking behind his back, someone he recognizes instantly.</p><p>“Got time for an old friend, Tones?”</p><p>Tony gets to his feet.</p><p>Rhodey’s smiling at him as brightly as the sun.</p><p>“Hey, Tones.”</p><p>“Goddamn.” </p><p>Tony’s stumbling the few steps between them and he’s hugging the life out of his friend. His friend who’s free. His friend who’s back. </p><p>“It’s really you.”</p><p>“My parole broke off. I heard the news and I knew you’d end up in France eventually.”</p><p>“I didn’t even know I’d go here.”</p><p>“And I always told you I knew you better than yourself,” Rhodey huffs, drawing back and clapping a hand over Tony’s shoulder again. He raises his eyebrows at the hotel, the garden. “What’s all this about?”</p><p>“I have a lot to tell you.” Tony’s glowing. He can’t stop smiling at Rhodey. His friend is back. It looks like Rhodey feels the same way. “Come in, welcome to my hotel. Let’s get a drink.” </p><p>“Your hotel?” </p><p>“I said I have a lot to tell you.”</p><p>Before they can duck out of the sun and the wind, an unfamiliar car pulls up on the gravel behind them. Tony squints at it. Then the kid gets out of the passenger side and another guy comes from the driver’s seat. </p><p>“Philippe’s staying for dinner!” Peter shouts ahead. </p><p>Philippe, huh? Tony thinks he knows where this is going.</p><p>The kid pauses, looking at Rhodey at Tony’s side. His arms drop at his sides.</p><p>“Oh my God.”</p><p>And he’s running to Rhodey and nearly bowling him over in Rhodey’s second hug of the day, one so clumsy and fervent you can tell they’re both over the moon to see each other again.</p><p>“Came to beat you at poker once and for all,” Rhodey says to him, smiling. Peter just laughs.</p><p> </p><p>The maid serves them dinner, thank God. It’s a strange, wonderful little family: Peter and this guy Philippe and Rhodey and Tony and an assortment of guests who decided to join the evening meal at the hotel. There’s a mingling of French and English. Rhodey doesn’t know French but Tony helps him out. He also takes the shit out of him for it a little, but it’s kind of mandatory to take the shit out of Americans when you’re in France.</p><p>Tony is <em>on </em>to Peter and Philippe. They’re so obviously checking each other out across the table that Tony has to fake a coughing fit at least twice to conceal his laughter. How he never caught on to Peter’s homosexual pining before, he doesn’t have a clue. Maybe because nobody in prison did that for him. Tony thinks the kid’s heart is working overtime now he’s finally surrounded again with men who aren’t old cons. Rhodey’s oblivious to it, but then again, he’s struggling to understand what anyone’s doing or saying.</p><p>It’s strange, though, the way it plays out between the two kids. Peter will look at Philippe, or Philippe will look at Peter, and they’ll look at each other again and start staring a little and maybe smile at one another but then Peter’s face will drop a little and he’ll look away.</p><p>“Philippe, you met Peter at the Café?” Tony asks innocently.</p><p>“Yes. He was reciting his poetry. He’s a really astounding poet.”</p><p>Peter smiles but he looks like he’s trying to stop himself from doing it too. He mutters, “Thanks.”</p><p>Even Rhodey can tell something is up.</p><p>Tony decides to pry. He’s pretty good at prying. “Which poem was it?” </p><p>“Just a poem,” Peter says, and he shrinks right past twenty-five and eighteen and ends up sounding like he’s maybe fifteen years old. Goddamn. Something’s going on and Tony doesn’t know whether he should laugh or frown at it.</p><p>“About…?”</p><p>“About something personal.”</p><p>Philippe finishes his meal and says, “You said I could see some more of your writing, Peter?” with this big beam on his face. He’s pretty sweet, Tony will give him that.</p><p>Peter just wordlessly goes and gets one of the printed copies of his own poetry Tony teases him for keeping but likes to peruse when he’s out. “Some of my things are in there,” he mentions when he gives it to Philippe.</p><p>Dinner is over and Peter and Philippe disappear. But Peter comes back right away.</p><p>“Where’s Philippe?”</p><p>“He went home.” </p><p>Tony narrows his eyes at the kid, who’s nowhere near meeting his gaze. He’s never felt more like a father trying to solve the puzzle of his son.</p><p>Rhodey’s tired from travelling overnight and also seems to know that something is happening, so he retires to a spare bedroom. That leaves him and Peter and a few guests in other rooms as the night draws in.</p><p>Tony thinks about what his father might do. He realises his father would have ignored Tony had this happened. So he thinks about what he’d most like somebody to do if he were acting the way Peter was.</p><p>So he shuts the doors and gets them sat down and just asks the kid what’s going on. That’s all it takes for him to spill.</p><p>“I just can’t stop thinking about Joey.”</p><p>Tony knows a whole lot about Joey now. Tony knows about the precise shade of green his eyes were and the way his chin would fit over Peter’s head and that he pretended to be shit at singing and had a screwed-up little finger from when he’d slammed it in a door. Joey is part of their family, really.</p><p>“When you’re with Philippe?”</p><p>“When I’m with <em>anyone. </em> When I’m dancing, or thinking about asking someone to go see a movie, or… I don’t know. I just keep stopping.” He runs his hands over his face. “I want to move on, but I don’t know if I can.”</p><p>There it is. Tony hardly even needs to give him a pep talk.</p><p>“Kid,” Tony tells him softly, wondering how he’s going to phrase what he wants to say, “Joey - he would want - shit. I didn’t think that through.”</p><p>Peter, who’d been all downcast, cracks a smile. </p><p>“Give me a moment, I’ll be back with a good point.”</p><p>“You can have a moment,” Peter says to him, sitting back in his armchair.</p><p>Silence. Tony gathers his thoughts.</p><p>“Peter, I think you’ve gotta live your life. I think Joey would want you to do that. I think he’d much rather you be happy with another guy than go around moping about him the rest of your life.”</p><p>“Hey,” Peter protests weakly.</p><p>“Yeah, I know. Bad joke. It still hurts. Of course it’s hard to move on. Hell, I’ve given up on moving on entirely. If you think that’s what’s right for you, go ahead. But I’m saying that I know you pretty damn well and I think you’re at your best when you’ve got someone to coo over and write poetry about.”</p><p>The kid’s not even talking now, he’s just smiling in this half-sad, half-joyful way. He laughs.</p><p>“Am I wrong?” </p><p>“You’re not wrong.”</p><p>“Well, you’ve got someone waiting at the door to be that person for you. I don’t see why you can’t take that opportunity.”</p><p>Peter sits and thinks on that for a little while. Then he goes, “Yeah, I don’t see why not.”</p><p>They talk back and forth, Peter caught between melancholy and hope and Tony finding himself rooting for the kid.</p><p>Peter bolts to his feet.</p><p>“I’m gonna go and get him.” </p><p>“What - Philippe? Right now?” </p><p>Tony’s up and following the kid as he makes for the door.</p><p>There’s an infectious joy in Peter’s countenance. “I don’t see why not.” </p><p>They’re in the hallway, under the lights. Tony chuckles and says, “Well, hell. Wasn’t that a successful pep talk?” </p><p>“Thanks, Tony. I needed to straighten myself out.”</p><p>“You’d better take me with you.”</p><p>“As long as you don’t embarrass me.”</p><p>So then they’re in the blue Thunderbird and driving to Philippe’s house - until Peter realises he doesn’t know where the guy lives and they make a pit stop at a gas station payphone to call up a friend from the Café. But they’re on their way eventually and then they make it and Peter pulls up by a bright yellow door that feels like a sign. It’s not a tablecloth, but - come on. It’s as close as it gets. It’s the bright yellow the kid still deserves to get back.</p><p>Tony doesn’t put music on or anything while he’s waiting in the passenger seat. He just sits and cranes his neck to see Peter idling by the door and watches it play out. Watches Philippe come out and stare in disbelief at Peter. Watches them both shuffle around, Philippe looking nervous but smiling. He can’t see the kid’s face but he can guess. Peter leans in a little and says something quietly and latches on to Philippe’s arm. Philippe nods, his whole person seeming to light up. </p><p>Then Peter casts this furtive look around the street, checking for anyone who might be watching, and, finding the place empty, darts forward and kisses Philippe. </p><p>Tony grins against his own damn will. He’d have frowned two years ago, but that was two years ago. Two years ago was entirely different. So he grins. A stupid-sounding little laugh escapes him. He feels smug.</p><p>Peter’s running back to the car now, all aglow, and he gets in and starts the car in a flurry and then looks across at Tony.</p><p>Tony raises his eyebrows. What is there to be said?</p><p>Peter huffs out a half-laugh. Then he says, <em> “This </em>is what I write poetry about.”</p><p>It’s just what he said after downing that neat vodka on his twenty-first birthday, still hung up in the Raft. It’s been nearly two years now since either of them have seen that place. It’s a world away and just beneath Tony’s consciousness, both at the same time. </p><p>The remark makes sense, but it’s corny, so Tony just lets his brow climb higher into his forehead.</p><p>“Say something!” Peter insists, shoving Tony a little, still smiling and glowing.</p><p>“You’re in love, aren’t you, buddy?” is what Tony comes up with. He twists up his mouth into a smile.</p><p>Peter shoves him again. “Shut up.” He does sound like a real teenager when he says it, though.</p><p>“I was fucking around. I’m proud of you.”</p><p>It brings them both up short for a moment.</p><p>“Thanks.”<br/><br/></p><p>The evenings are what Tony enjoys the most. The quiet and the stillness and the warm, dim light, and the shadows just outside, they set his heart at rest.</p><p>The hotel is sleeping, everyone except him and Peter. The kid is reading something called <em> Giovanni’s Room. </em> He’s widening his eyes at it every so often so it must be good. A Pall Mall hangs from his fingers; Tony’s got a Marlboro as usual. Some things don’t have to change.</p><p>Their smoke trails slowly settle into the air and mingle until there’s a hybrid smell in the air, a little Pall Mall and a little Marlboro. Tony has bills at a small table that he’s working steadily through. It’s comforting to go through menial finances. Tony’s always been good with money, whether or not he’s a hotshot banker.</p><p>Neither of them are talking. It’s mostly just them breathing. It’s calm. Sometimes Peter will turn a page or Tony will note something down or one of them will blow out some smoke, just small noises that fade into the night. </p><p>Tony and Peter and quiet. That’s all they really need.</p><p>Tony gets a kind of strange idea in his head but he indulges it because he’s got the time for it. So he sets his bills aside and grabs the nearest scrap of paper and writes.</p><p>Now, Tony’s no great poet by any stretch of the imagination, but he has this idea in his head and if it were to be fully realised and worked upon and worked upon and finished, he thinks it might go something like this.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I was born with love  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> like every kid,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and I had love and pride  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> for my old man. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> But love was beaten out of me and snatched </em>
</p><p>
  <em> like pocket change.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Then love was confiscated, contraband </em>
</p><p>
  <em> like cigarettes.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> When I found love again, I burned it, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> thought that it was pocket change. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I didn't want it, so I crushed it, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> thought that it was cigarettes. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> They locked me up without no love </em>
</p><p>
  <em>because I’d lost it, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>lost that privilege. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I had no right, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> right? </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> So when you offered love to me </em>
</p><p>
  <em>it wasn’t anything </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’d felt before. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’d killed love, yet </em>
</p><p>
  <em> here it was. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I’d grown used to bootleg love </em>
</p><p>
  <em> but yours was bright and true. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I didn't know what to do. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I picked it up to look at it--  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I couldn't put it down.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I needed it  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> and thrived on it and grew. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Now, kid, I’ve love for you  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> just like you’re mine. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>There it is. On the page, it’s not so good as in Tony’s brain. It’s a poem all the same.</p><p>Tony turns it over quietly and makes a plan to slip it under the kid’s door later on. Peter loves that sappy shit. He’ll love it, Tony knows, just because it’s a poem and it’s about love and it’s kind of a word of thanks to him for saving Tony. Tony wants him to know that, that he saved him. Maybe they’re equal, then: Tony broke them out of prison, Peter broke them out of misery. Love and freedom.</p><p>For a while, Tony’s content to just sit back in his chair and watch the room, the moon outside, the cigarette smoke, the kid with his nose in his book. There’s peace in the room, and Tony basks in it.</p><p>They’re both where they want to be at last.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Credit where credit is due: the original version and essence of this last poem was written by Ren and promptly commandeered by me because I was so darn excited about someone writing poetry about my work!!! Thank you friend!<br/>It's the end of an era,,, I always get emotional but now I'm free to move onto other projects I guess! And Peter and Joey's story is gonna stick with me I think. How did this work affect you? I always like to know that :)<br/>Thank you, guys, for being such a devoted audience. I love you all!!<br/>In acting news: I sent in an audition tape but haven't heard anything back - and I might never if they don't want me to do another round of auditions. It's okay though because I know whatever happens will happen at the right time, and maybe now just isn't the time for that yet. For now, I have my school Shakespeare play, I have my acting classes, I have all the movies I love, and I have lots to write about them!!<br/>Daisy, signing off. x</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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